CHAPTER III.THE MODE OF SOLAR ENERGY.But is there such an available force? There is one, and only one,—electricity, when properly generated and suitably applied. It is an axiom of electrical science that any fluid which will at all conduct a current of electricity can be decomposed by a current of electricity. (See Urbanitsky’s work, “Electricity in the Service of Man,” Cassell’s edition, page 154.) It is there stated (page 152), “We have frequently had occasion to mention certain chemical effects of electricity,—namely, the decomposition of gaseous compounds into simple gases.” Page 157, “Whatever the substances we expose to the action of the galvanic current, decomposition takes place proportional to the strength of the current.” Page 152, “Hydrogen is always evolved at the negative pole of the battery and oxygen at the positive pole. The gases can then be collected in different tubes, the hydrogen tube receiving twice as much gas as the oxygen tube; since water consists of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen, it follows that the galvanic current decomposes water into its constituents. As chemically pure water has so great a resistance as almost to force us to consider it a non-conductor, it is generally acidulated with sulphuric acid. The smallest amount of acid diminishes theresistance considerably. The silent discharge is far more effective in bringing about this transformation than the spark discharge.” Page 37, “Gases are bad conductors of electricity; if it had been otherwise, we should never have become acquainted with electricity, as it would have been conducted away by the air as fast as it was generated. The vacuum also does not conduct electricity, butmoist airbecomes a partial conductor. Moist air also will spoil the insulation of non-conducting supports. All bodies are more or less hygroscopic, and the moisture condensed on their surfacesthus turns the best insulators into conductors. Change of temperature also influences conductivity.” Page 63, “When using induction machines, the moisture of the air often causes experiments to fail, especially before large audiences. The atmosphere becomes saturated with moisture, and it is often impossible to get the machine in working order.” Several desiccating devices are mentioned by the authors of this work, as used with such machines, to prevent such dissipation or conduction of electricity from the machine into space by the aqueous vapor of the atmosphere. In describing the aurora borealis (page 93), these authors say, “The rarefied air is nearer the earth at the poles than the equator, in consequence of the earth’s centrifugal motion, and, the earth being negatively electrified, negative electricity will flow from this point, directed against thepositively electrified upper layers of rarefied air.” Same work, pages 127, 128, “The resistance (in liquids) diminishesas the temperature increases, a result which is exactly opposite to what occurs with metals. Conductivity for carbon increases with the temperature, thus agreeing with the action of liquids.” Page 133, “To determine the resistance in liquids, the above methods cannot be employed, liquids being decomposed by the electrical current.” Referring to the voltaic arc and the spark of the induction apparatus (page 200), it is said, “Dry air under great pressure offers a high resistance, but aperfect vacuum is a perfect insulator, and between these extremes there are degrees of rarification which admit of a flow of electricity.” In general, it is said that electrical decomposition requires that the electrolyte be in liquid form, but this is not universally true, and throughout interplanetary space may not be true at all. In Ferguson’s work on Electricity, it is stated that, “The passage of electricity through compound gases in a state of great rarity, as in the so-called vacuum tubes, frequently separates them up into their constituents.” So, also, the opinion that electricity cannot be readily conducted through dry gases is refuted by the play of the auroral streamers. The distance from the surface of the earth of these electrical waves and the auroral arch is variously estimated at from seventy to two hundred and sixty-five miles, and in one instance “at a height of from four thousand to six thousand miles;” see article in Appleton’s Cyclopædia. Certainly there could be no sensible moisture at the temperatures there prevalent, and especially at night and during thefall and winter months when these displays are very frequent. Whether the currents be due to induction, as between neighboring bodies one of which is electrified, or from direct emission, as in brush discharges, there must obviously be some medium of contact and continuity for the free transference of electrical energy through space. Regarding therationaleof electrolysis (“Electricity in the Service of Man”), after discussing certain other theories, the authors say, “Clausius, too, assumes an electrified condition of the molecules of each electrode, but he neither attributes to the galvanic current the force of direction nor power of decomposing. He points out that both the molecules of fluids and also their atoms are in continual motion. The atoms in molecules of fluids are held together but by a moderate force, and the molecules themselves constantly undergo changes both of synthesis and analysis. The galvanic current merely effects a regulated motion of the atoms; the positive ions are attracted by the negative electrode, and the negative ions by the positive electrode, and by this means are separated out from the liquid.” Page 91, “The upper layers of air are more or less electrified, so as to have a potential differing from that of the earth, buthow their electrical condition has been produced is not at present known. Condensation of water-vapor is supposed to produce electricity. Close to the earth the air has little or no electricity; the farther from the earth the greater the amount of electricity in the air.” Referring to the sparking discharge, it issaid, page 75, “The density of the air, however, has to be taken into account; the sparking distance is lessened in denser air, and becomes greater when the atmospheric pressure is diminished. Not only the density, but also the chemical composition of the medium influences the sparking distance. Faraday found the distances considerably less in chlorine gas, buttwice as long in hydrogen gas as in air.” Page 74, “The sparking distance increases at a somewhat greater rate than the difference of potential of the discharging bodies …. When the sparking distance becomes very great … it is proportional to the difference of potential.” Page 91, “There is a difference of potential between the earth and points in the air above. In fine weather the potential is higher the higher we go, increasing usually at the rate oftwenty to forty volts for each foot.”It will be seen that, continued upward at this rate, the increased electrical pressure for each mile of elevation would be between 100,000 and 200,000 volts, or for each one hundred miles more than 10,000,000 volts; and at an altitude of one thousand miles, if carried so far, the potential would be between one and two hundred million volts, an electrical pressure quite inconceivable to us. Such a potential in currents of enormous quantity continually flowing from the earth to the sun would certainly decompose any aqueous vapors condensed around these bodies. But the question at once arises, What reason is there to suppose that such currents could possibly flow between the earth and the sun, acrossthat vast intervening region of space, a distance of more than 90,000,000 miles? And would not the resistance to such currents in transit be so enormous that the entire potential, however great, would have been practically lost long before reaching the sun? To this there is a complete and irrefutable answer, not based upon any abstract theory, but upon established fact. It is an absolute certainty that electrical currents of enormous quantity and high potential are constantly passing between the earth and the sun, and that these currents have so free a passage—far more free than through any metallic circuits that we know of—that they pass over this enormous distance absolutely without appreciable resistance. We may note in this connection the well-known facts, now being largely utilized, though the art is still in its infancy, of telegraphing and transmitting all sorts of electrical currents over large distances without wires or any conductors, except those furnished by nature.Of the currents between the earth and the sun, Professor Proctor, in his “Light Science for Leisure Hours,” says, “Remembering the influence which the sun has been found to exercise upon the magnetic needle, the question will naturally arise, Has the sun anything to do with magnetic storms? We have clear evidence that he has. On the 1st of September, 1859, Messrs. Carrington and Hodgson were observing the sun, one at Oxford and the other in London. Their scrutiny was directed to certain large spots which at that time marked the sun’s face. Suddenly a bright light was seen byeach observer to break out on the sun’s surface and to travel, slowly in appearance, but in reality at the rate of about seven thousand miles in a minute, across a part of the solar disk. Now, it was found afterwards that the self-registering magnetic instruments at Kew had madeat that very instanta strongly-marked jerk. It was learned that at that moment a magnetic storm prevailed in the West Indies, in South America, and in Australia. The signal men in the telegraph stations at Washington and Philadelphia received strong electric shocks; the pen of Bain’s telegraph was followed by a flame of fire; and in Norway the telegraphic machinery was set on fire. At night great auroras were seen in both hemispheres. It is impossible not to connect these startling magnetic indications with the remarkable appearance observed upon the sun’s disk. But there is other evidence. Magnetic storms prevail more commonly in some years than in others. In those years in which they occur most frequently it is found that the ordinary oscillations of the magnetic needle are more extensive than usual. Now, when these peculiarities had been noticed for many years, it was found that there was an alternate and systematic increase and diminution in intensity of magnetic action, and that the period of the variation was about eleven years. But at the same time a diligent observer had been recording the appearance of the sun’s face from day to day and from year to year. He had found that the solar spots are in some years more freely displayed than in others, and he had determined the period inwhich the spots had successively presented with maximum frequency to be about eleven years. On a comparison of the two sets of observations it was found (and has now been placed beyond a doubt by many years of continual observation) that magnetic perturbations are most energetic when the sun is most spotted, andvice versa. For so remarkable a phenomenon as this none but a cosmical cause can suffice. We can neither say that the spots cause the magnetic storms nor that the magnetic storms cause the spots. We must seek for a cause producing at once both sets of phenomena.” It will be observed that the phenomena seen in the sun were markedat the same instantby violent electric perturbations on earth. Hence something must have passed with the velocity of light, which we know to be at the rate of 188,000 miles per second, or in about eight minutes from the sun to the earth. But it is stated in “Electricity in the Service of Man,” page 82, that, “According to the theoretical calculations of Kirchhoff, as well as of Ayrton and Perry, the velocity of electricity in a wirewithout resistance would be equal to the velocity of light.” Hence we perceive that the apparent difficulty has vanished in the light of observed fact, and that currents of electricity do pass and are constantly passing between the earth and the sun without the slightest loss of speed,—that is to say, without resistance. We shall find in the sequel that the above phenomena were caused most probably by a partial interruption of a constant direct current from the earth to the sun, instead of by an opposite returncurrent from the sun to the earth. In further illustration of the above facts we quote the following, page 172, “Electricity in the Service of Man:” “Many attempts have been made to find a connection between the spots and prominences in the sun and the electrical phenomena on the earth. Professor Forster says that by numerous magnetic observations of the last thirty or forty years it has been proved that the formation of black spots on the surface of the sun, and the generation of pillars and clouds of glowing gases in the immediate neighborhood of the sun, stand in close connection with certain deviations in direction and intensity of the earth’s magnetic forces.” Professor Proctor, in his “Light Science for Leisure Hours,” says, “From all this it appears, incontestably, that there is an intimate connection between the causes of auroras and those of terrestrial magnetism …. The magnetic needle not only swayed responsively to auroras observable in the immediate neighborhood, but to auroras in progress hundreds and thousands of miles away. Nay, as inquiry progressed, it was discovered that the needles in our northern observatories are swayed by influences associated even with the occurrence of auroras around the southern polar regions …. Could we only associate auroras with terrestrial magnetism, we should still have done much to enhance the interest which the beautiful phenomenon is calculated to excite. But when once this association has been established, others of even greater interest are brought into recognition; for terrestrial magnetism has beenclearly shown to be influenced directly by the action of the sun …. We already begin to see, then, that auroras are associated in some mysterious way with the action of the solar rays. The phenomenon which had been looked on for so many ages as a mere spectacle, caused perhaps by some process in the upper regions of the air of a simple local character, has been brought into the range of planetary phenomena. As surely as the brilliant planets which deck the nocturnal skies are illuminated by the same orb which gives us our days and seasons, so are they subject to the same mysterious influence which causes the northern banners to wave respondently over the starlit depths of heaven. Nay, it is even probable that every flicker and coruscation of our auroral displays correspond with similar manifestations upon every planet which travels round the sun.” In Professor Ball’s late work, “In the High Heavens,” the author says, “Dr. Schuster suggests that there may be an electric connection between the sun and the planets. In fact, with some limitations, we might even assert that theremustbe such a connection. It is well known that great outbreaks on the sun have been immediately followed, I might almost say accompanied, by remarkable magnetic disturbances on the earth. The instances that are recorded of this connection are altogether too remarkable to be set aside as mere coincidences. Dr. Huggins has not referred in this connection to Hertz’s astonishing discoveries; but it seems quite possible that research along this line may throw light on the subject,at present so obscure,of the electric relation between the sun and the earth.” Of this common electrical relationship between our sun and the different planets, and of these with each other, Professor Proctor says, in his article, “Terrestrial Magnetism,” “Interesting as are the bonds of union which Copernicus and Kepler and Newton have traced in the relations of our system,it would seem as though we were approaching the traces of a yet more wonderful law of association. We see the earth’s magnetism responding to the solar influences, not merely in those rhythmic motions which belong to the periodic variations, but in sudden thrills affecting the whole framework of our globe. The magnetic storms which are called into action by such solar disturbances as the one of September, 1859, are, we may feel sure, not peculiar to our own earth. The other planets feel the same influence,—not, perhaps, in exactly the same way, but according to the constitution and physical habitudes which respectively belong to them. So that one can scarce conceive a subject of study at once more promising and more interesting.” Of these prophetic shadows which science often seems to cast before, Professor Nichol, in his “Architecture of the Heavens” (referring to Sir William Herschel), says, “Without difficulty or pretence he there casts aside an idea which had not been questioned before, unless in a few of those obscure, indefinite speculationswhich, strangely enough, often prelude important discoveries.” These facts are thus incontestably established: that electric currents of enormous energy and vast quantityare constantly passing without appreciable resistance and with the speed of light between the earth and the sun; that such currents cannot be conducted through vacua, or through dry gases, or through a dense medium; and that, whatever other matter may exist in the intervening space, such space is pervaded throughout by an attenuated vapor of such constitution and density that it will transmit such electrical currents with the highest conceivable efficiency. We know that such passage of these currents cannot depend upon the ether of space which is acted upon by the sun to produce the ethereal undulatory vibrations of light and heat, for, after we have produced the most perfect vacuum possible, we find that the rays of light continue to pass through it as freely as they pass through space, while currents of electricity cannot be made to pass at all. Hence we know to a certainty that the medium which transmits these enormous currents of electricity must be a vapor capable of conducting electricity, that it must hence be decomposable by the electric current, and that when decomposed one of its elements must consist of hydrogen gas and the other of oxygen; in other words, that this conducting medium must consist of attenuatedaqueousvapor, commingled doubtless with other vapors which themselves, like the acid of the acidulated water used in electrolysis, aid in the conduction of these enormous currents. We also know that such vapors in space will be necessarily attracted, by gravitation, around the solar and planetary bodies immersed therein, and must formcondensed vaporous atmospheres or cloud masses, and if these are decomposed by the passage of such currents of electricity, that hydrogen gas will be liberated at the solar galvanic pole and oxygen at the terrestrial or other planetary pole, precisely as we find to be the case in nature. Will such gaseous envelopes, then, have the same temperature for each gas when thus liberated, or will the hydrogen envelope of the sun be heated to incandescence, due to the passage of the electrical current?Electrical polarities of sun and planets. A, body of the planet; B, planetary electrosphere; C, body of the sun; D, solar electrosphere.The temperature of interplanetary space is probably very low. Of this Professor Ball says, “What this may be is a matter of some uncertainty, but from all the evidence available it seems plain that we may put it at not less than three hundred degrees below zero;” and the same author adds, “The temperature is taken to be sixty-four degrees below zero, being presumably that at the confines of the atmosphere.” Whatever the temperature of space, or its variations, may be, the passage of the planetaryelectricity through the condensed hydrogen envelope of the sun will produce great changes in the heat of that body and of the solar core within. While with a small electrolytic apparatus we find no special differences of temperature in the gases, with large quantities of electricity, driven at a high potential, we find that a new and startling result ensues. Something of this sort is seen in the operation of electric arc-light lamps, now in common use, in which two slightly separated carbon points are traversed by a current of considerable potential. The current is driven across the intervening space between the points, carrying with it an atmosphere of disintegrated carbon, through which the electricity is carried at its highest speed, and a most brilliant light is produced. In “Electricity in the Service of Man,” page 151, it is said, “We may conclude from this that the current does not cease when the arc of light is formed. The resistance of the arc seems to be only very slight; in fact, the current must be conducted by it.” Of the structure and constitution of the luminous electrosphere, or arc, produced in these lamps, “Professor J. A. Fleming,” says theScientific American, “has shown that the well-known color of the light of the electric arc from carbon points is due to the incandescence of the carbon filling the space between the positive and the negative rods. The true arc is here, and exists in a space filled with thevapor of carbon, which has a brilliant violet color. Examined by the spectroscope, the central axis of the carbon arc gives a spectrum marked bytwo bright violet bands. Outside this is an aureole of carbon vapor of yellow or golden color. The electrical strain of the arc occurs chieflyat the surface of the craterwhich forms at the end of the positive rod, where, in fact, the principal work of generating light is done; foreighty per cent. of the total light of the arc comes from the incandescent carbon at this place. Thus, in a sense, the arc light is mainly an incandescent light, the effect being produced by the layer of carbon which is being constantly evaporated at an extremely elevated temperature. Hence the light of the carbon arc is not, and can never be, white, as it is sometimes described as being, but must always be tinted violet by the carbon vapor normally present between the rods.”The significance of the above-quoted extract will be readily perceived when we come to consider the action of the direct planetary electrical currents upon the solar envelope, the effects in both cases being substantially identical. The quantity and intensity of the electric current, as it passes through the incandescent arc to the negative pole, and thence back to the dynamo, are diminished exactly in proportion to the energy expended in the generation of the light and heat of the arc. It is precisely the same as in the operation of a turbine water-wheel; if working at its highest efficiency, the discharged water is almost deprived of force: its gravity has been converted into work. In the electric light this conversion is only partial, owing to atmospheric and other conditions; but in thecase of the solar envelope and its core, it is nearly, if not altogether, perfect, so that the currents of electricity are almost entirely converted into light and heat, or expended in the electrolytic decomposition of the surrounding aqueous vapors, and do not reappear as electricity, but as converted solar energy. Brilliant, however, as the light rays are in a powerful arc lamp,—perhaps the nearest to solar light we can produce,—the obscure heat rays are far more numerous and powerful. On page 476 of the work just cited a table is given, showing the proportion of visible and invisible rays emitted by different illuminants, and with the electric lamp, even, ninety per cent. of all the rays emitted by the voltaic arc are heat rays, which are obscure and invisible. But the startling effects of electricity of large quantity and high potential, in the decomposition of water, are far more strikingly exhibited by an apparatus shown in 1893 at the Chicago Exhibition by a firm from Brussels, and which is described in theElectrical Reviewas follows: “An ordinary wooden pail is three-quarters filled with water slightly acidulated; a lead plate about nine inches broad by sixteen inches long dips to the bottom of the pail and is connected to an incandescent dynamo machine capable of giving over one hundred and fifty ampères. The iron rod, or article to be heated, is connected to the pole of the dynamo and simply dipped into the water; it immediately becomes heated and rapidly rises to a melting temperature; only that portion of the metal completely immersed becomes heated,and the heating is so rapid that neither the water nor that portion of the metal out of the water becomes very warm. Wrought iron and steel actually melt if long enough held under water. A carbon rod subjected to this process becomes amorphous carbon, proving that a temperature of at least four thousand degrees Centigrade has been reached, and it is stated that with two hundred and twenty volts’ pressure a temperature of eight thousand degrees Centigrade has been reached. There are various theories to account for this phenomenon, but from close observation it appears to be a case of arc heating. The moment the metal is plunged into the waterit is enveloped in hydrogen gasdecomposed from the water. This envelope of gas parts the water and metal, forming an arc, which raises the surrounding gaseous envelope to an enormous temperature; the metal surrounded by this arc is almost immediately raised to the same temperature.A flame of burning hydrogenappears around the metal on the surface of the water. The principle of the method is the same as that on which the burning of an arc light between two carbon points under water depends. An arc lamp will burn quite steadily under water if the connections are made water-proof; the arc itself requires no protection.”It will be seen that the process above described is precisely analogous to that involved in the problem of the sun’s energy. The planets correspond with the leaden plates, upon which oxygen is disengaged from the water, while at thesame moment the liberated hydrogen necessarily appears at the opposite pole. The generation of hydrogen gas forms an envelope or atmosphere of hydrogen around the sun which forces back the aqueous vapor. The current, in passing through this gaseous envelope to the metal core within, intensely heats the hydrogen, which rapidly communicates its rising heat to the central core. If this core is composed of metals, and the temperature be raised sufficiently high, which only depends upon the quantity and working pressure of the electricity employed, the metal core will be volatilized in whole or in part, and, if of mixed metals, we will find the presence of these elements revealed in the spectroscopic lines corresponding thereto, and the flames and flashes of hydrogen at the surfaces beyond the envelope, at the surface of contact with the matter of space, will be also seen. In fact, such an experiment, properly prepared, could be made to show roughly most of the phenomena of solar light and heat as they actually appear, such as sun-spots, prominences, jets, plumes, faculæ, the photosphere, chromosphere, absorption bands, vortical disturbances, metallic vapors, and the complete solar spectrum, with the different Fraunhofer lines. In the case of the sun, these currents must be measured by millions of ampères, and possibly by hundreds of millions of volts, instead of by mere hundreds, while the hydrogen envelope extends outward from the sun’s surface hundreds of thousands of miles until, perhaps, finally merged into the corona. As the currentspass from the planets and planetoids (for not only the larger planets, but all the planetary bodies of our system must contribute, if any of them contribute) to the sun, or rather to the sphere of its electrical action, without resistance, so long as these planets generate constant currents of the same, or nearly the same, potential, so long will the sun maintain his constant light and heat; if these are increased or diminished, the sun’s light and heat will be temporarily, but only temporarily, increased or diminished; and this process must continue, without further loss or change, indefinitely into the future. Whatever the sun may gain by increment of meteoric masses may pass for what it is worth, but the gradual contraction of his volume cannot proceed while his present temperature is maintained by the passage of such currents,—that is to say, his light and heat will remain constant, and also his mass and volume, so long as the electric currents which pass from the planets to the sun and the constitution of space which surrounds the sun and planets themselves remain constant.Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity.Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity.It now remains to consider how such enormous currents of electricity can be generated and maintained. We know, of course, that chemical changes cannot operate to produce them. They must be derived from something contained in or diffused through interplanetary space, and the planets themselves must be the means by which such currents of electricity are brought into effective operation. On our own earth we have many kindsof mechanically-constructed electrical apparatus whichgenerateelectricity, to use a popular expression, or which, more properly, separate the opposite potentials from an unstable electrical tension or equilibrium of the matter of space. These machines practically take positive electricity from the mutually-balanced electric potentials of which the earth and its surrounding gaseous envelope are the vast common storehouse, in such manner that the positive electricity thus drawn out from and again passing into the common storehouse shall, during such transit, be compelled to pass through channels which will cause it to do work, at the expense of its potential or pressure, during its passage, or in which electricity is raised in its electro-motive force from a lower to a higher potential or pressure, just as the pressure of water is increased when delivered from a greater or a still greater height, or steam, when confined in space under higher and still higher temperatures. But none of these machines actuallygenerateelectricityab initio; they merely put into effective operation the pre-existing force. The mass of the earth is of irregularly negative polarity, the air above is positive, and as weascend, the potential, or voltage, or pressure increases at a nearly uniform rate of from twenty to forty volts for each foot. The earth is thus surrounded by an electrosphere as well as an atmosphere, and the two are not coincident, for while the pressure of the atmosphere diminishes as we ascend, that of the electrosphere increases. The moon, too, and each planet must have its electrosphere, and around the sun’s core we can see the solar electrosphere in its visible glory. Thus, all our planets rotate upon their axes and revolve around the sun, each surrounded by an enormous electrosphere, just as an electrical induction machine is surrounded, when in operation, with an electrosphere of its own, and which, by breaking connection with the conductor which carries away its current, becomes, when shown in a darkened room, clearly visible. In “Electricity in the Service of Man” it is said, page 63, “The inductive action of the machine is quite as rapid and as powerful when both collectors are removed and nothing is left but the two rotating disks and their respective contact or neutralizing brushes. The whole apparatus then bristles with electricity, and if viewed in the dark presents a most beautiful appearance, being literally bathed with luminous brush discharges.” This is a true aurora.The Aurora Borealis. (From “Electricity in the Service of Man.”)The Aurora Borealis. (From “Electricity in the Service of Man.”)Diffused brush discharge of electrical machine, when operating with its current cut off or interrupted between machine and principal condenser.Diffused brush discharge of electrical machine, when operating with its current cut off or interrupted between machine and principal condenser.Let us now examine some of these more recent electric machines,—the later induction, not the older frictional machines, for it is obvious that the rotation of the planets, if they operate as electric generators, or separators, must act by inductionand not by friction. The frictional machines are of the old type and are well known from the books; in these a glass disk or cylinder is rubbed upon in its rotation by an amalgamated (so called) friction pad fixed securely to the bed of the machine. But more recently these have been replaced by far more powerful and simple machines which operate entirely by induction, like approaching thunderclouds, for instance, and in which one or more glass disks are merely rotated rapidly and freely in the air, these disks having a number of light metallic sectors, such as bits of tin-foil, pasted on their outer sides at equal radial intervals, and with metallic collecting brushes which, however, barely graze the surfaces of the rotating disk. There is no pressure and no friction, except that of the disks as they freely revolve in the atmosphere.In the above-quoted work, page 61, is a description of Wimshurst’s influence machine, one of the most recent and most powerful, which we condense as follows: This machine was produced about 1883. It consists of two circular disks of thin glass fourteen and one-half inches in diameter in the sample described, attached at their centers to loose bosses, so as to be rotated by cords and pulleys operated by a handle, in opposite directions. The disks rotate parallel with each other and are not more than one-eighth of an inch apart, and have their surfaces well varnished; and attached by cement to their outer surfaces are twelve or more radial, sector-shaped plates of thin brass- or tin-foil, disposed around the disks at equal distances apart. Thesesectors take the place of the “inductors” of Holtz’s instrument, and appear to act also as carriers, though the exact nature of their action is somewhat mysterious. It appears, however, probable that those acting for the time as carriers on the one disk act at the same time as inductors on the other. The two sectors on the same diameter of each disk, at opposite sides of the center, are twice in each revolution momentarily placed in metallic connection with one another by means of a pair of fine wire brushes attached to the ends of a bent metal rod loosely pivoted at the center of each disk, the metal sectorsjust grazingthe tips of the wire brushes as they pass. There is one of these bent rods on the outside of each disk, and their position as pivoted on their center can be varied at will, both with reference to the one on the opposite side and to the position of the fixed collecting combs. The efficiency of the machine varies with their position, and the maximum appears to be generally when the brushes touch the disks on diameters crossing the position of the collecting combs at about forty-five degrees, and with the bent rods on opposite sides at right angles to each other. The collecting combs are simple forks with collecting points turned inward, which forks embrace the opposite sides of the disks outside, which freely rotate between them, and they are supported on insulated posts. These supports may be small Leyden jars or condensers, with discharging knobs, or may be connected with similar condensers at a distance, or arranged in batteries or otherwise. The presenceof the collecting combs is not necessary to the operation of the machine, their sole function being to carry away the positive electricity as generated. The machine is self-exciting, and it is believed that theinitial actionmust be due to friction in the layer of air contained between the plates, which, as above stated, are only about one-eighth of an inch apart. It is nearly independent of atmospheric conditions, and not liable to reverse its polarity, as are the Voss machines. The Voss machine uses a larger glass disk which does not rotate, but is fixed, and which has a central opening three inches wide, with a different arrangement of tin-foil disks or sectors, and a smaller glass disk rotates parallel with it. The Holtz machine is somewhat similar, using a single rotating, well-varnished glass disk revolving opposite a well-varnished larger disk, the latter provided with three sector-shaped openings or windows, with varnished paper inductors or flaps passing through these windows so as to touch the revolving disk. There are also two series of fine metal points held by brass bars provided with insulated handles and discharging knobs.It is only necessary to give a general idea of the construction and operation of such machines, as their specific construction can be readily learned from the books. Of the mode of operation, however, it is said, “What takes place when the machine is in action is of a very complicated nature, and can hardly be said to be perfectly understood.” With a Wimshurst machine having disks of a diameter of fourteen and one-half inches “there is producedunder ordinary atmospheric conditions a powerful spark discharge between the knobs when they are separated by a distance of four and one-half inches, a pint size Leyden jar being in connection with each knob (one on each opposite diameter of the two disks), and these four-and-one-half-inch discharges take place in regular succession at every two and a half turns of the handle. It is usual to construct the machine with small Leyden jars or condensers attached to conductors, by which the spark is materially increased. A machine has been constructed with plates seven feet in diameter, which, it was believed, would give sparks thirty inches long; but no Leyden jars have been found to withstand its discharge, all being pierced by the enormous tension.” Three of Toepler’s induction machines (see page 59, “Electricity in the Service of Man”), connected together, gave a current which maintained a platinum wire one-fifth of a millimeter thick continually at a red heat, and was also capable of decomposing water.
CHAPTER III.THE MODE OF SOLAR ENERGY.But is there such an available force? There is one, and only one,—electricity, when properly generated and suitably applied. It is an axiom of electrical science that any fluid which will at all conduct a current of electricity can be decomposed by a current of electricity. (See Urbanitsky’s work, “Electricity in the Service of Man,” Cassell’s edition, page 154.) It is there stated (page 152), “We have frequently had occasion to mention certain chemical effects of electricity,—namely, the decomposition of gaseous compounds into simple gases.” Page 157, “Whatever the substances we expose to the action of the galvanic current, decomposition takes place proportional to the strength of the current.” Page 152, “Hydrogen is always evolved at the negative pole of the battery and oxygen at the positive pole. The gases can then be collected in different tubes, the hydrogen tube receiving twice as much gas as the oxygen tube; since water consists of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen, it follows that the galvanic current decomposes water into its constituents. As chemically pure water has so great a resistance as almost to force us to consider it a non-conductor, it is generally acidulated with sulphuric acid. The smallest amount of acid diminishes theresistance considerably. The silent discharge is far more effective in bringing about this transformation than the spark discharge.” Page 37, “Gases are bad conductors of electricity; if it had been otherwise, we should never have become acquainted with electricity, as it would have been conducted away by the air as fast as it was generated. The vacuum also does not conduct electricity, butmoist airbecomes a partial conductor. Moist air also will spoil the insulation of non-conducting supports. All bodies are more or less hygroscopic, and the moisture condensed on their surfacesthus turns the best insulators into conductors. Change of temperature also influences conductivity.” Page 63, “When using induction machines, the moisture of the air often causes experiments to fail, especially before large audiences. The atmosphere becomes saturated with moisture, and it is often impossible to get the machine in working order.” Several desiccating devices are mentioned by the authors of this work, as used with such machines, to prevent such dissipation or conduction of electricity from the machine into space by the aqueous vapor of the atmosphere. In describing the aurora borealis (page 93), these authors say, “The rarefied air is nearer the earth at the poles than the equator, in consequence of the earth’s centrifugal motion, and, the earth being negatively electrified, negative electricity will flow from this point, directed against thepositively electrified upper layers of rarefied air.” Same work, pages 127, 128, “The resistance (in liquids) diminishesas the temperature increases, a result which is exactly opposite to what occurs with metals. Conductivity for carbon increases with the temperature, thus agreeing with the action of liquids.” Page 133, “To determine the resistance in liquids, the above methods cannot be employed, liquids being decomposed by the electrical current.” Referring to the voltaic arc and the spark of the induction apparatus (page 200), it is said, “Dry air under great pressure offers a high resistance, but aperfect vacuum is a perfect insulator, and between these extremes there are degrees of rarification which admit of a flow of electricity.” In general, it is said that electrical decomposition requires that the electrolyte be in liquid form, but this is not universally true, and throughout interplanetary space may not be true at all. In Ferguson’s work on Electricity, it is stated that, “The passage of electricity through compound gases in a state of great rarity, as in the so-called vacuum tubes, frequently separates them up into their constituents.” So, also, the opinion that electricity cannot be readily conducted through dry gases is refuted by the play of the auroral streamers. The distance from the surface of the earth of these electrical waves and the auroral arch is variously estimated at from seventy to two hundred and sixty-five miles, and in one instance “at a height of from four thousand to six thousand miles;” see article in Appleton’s Cyclopædia. Certainly there could be no sensible moisture at the temperatures there prevalent, and especially at night and during thefall and winter months when these displays are very frequent. Whether the currents be due to induction, as between neighboring bodies one of which is electrified, or from direct emission, as in brush discharges, there must obviously be some medium of contact and continuity for the free transference of electrical energy through space. Regarding therationaleof electrolysis (“Electricity in the Service of Man”), after discussing certain other theories, the authors say, “Clausius, too, assumes an electrified condition of the molecules of each electrode, but he neither attributes to the galvanic current the force of direction nor power of decomposing. He points out that both the molecules of fluids and also their atoms are in continual motion. The atoms in molecules of fluids are held together but by a moderate force, and the molecules themselves constantly undergo changes both of synthesis and analysis. The galvanic current merely effects a regulated motion of the atoms; the positive ions are attracted by the negative electrode, and the negative ions by the positive electrode, and by this means are separated out from the liquid.” Page 91, “The upper layers of air are more or less electrified, so as to have a potential differing from that of the earth, buthow their electrical condition has been produced is not at present known. Condensation of water-vapor is supposed to produce electricity. Close to the earth the air has little or no electricity; the farther from the earth the greater the amount of electricity in the air.” Referring to the sparking discharge, it issaid, page 75, “The density of the air, however, has to be taken into account; the sparking distance is lessened in denser air, and becomes greater when the atmospheric pressure is diminished. Not only the density, but also the chemical composition of the medium influences the sparking distance. Faraday found the distances considerably less in chlorine gas, buttwice as long in hydrogen gas as in air.” Page 74, “The sparking distance increases at a somewhat greater rate than the difference of potential of the discharging bodies …. When the sparking distance becomes very great … it is proportional to the difference of potential.” Page 91, “There is a difference of potential between the earth and points in the air above. In fine weather the potential is higher the higher we go, increasing usually at the rate oftwenty to forty volts for each foot.”It will be seen that, continued upward at this rate, the increased electrical pressure for each mile of elevation would be between 100,000 and 200,000 volts, or for each one hundred miles more than 10,000,000 volts; and at an altitude of one thousand miles, if carried so far, the potential would be between one and two hundred million volts, an electrical pressure quite inconceivable to us. Such a potential in currents of enormous quantity continually flowing from the earth to the sun would certainly decompose any aqueous vapors condensed around these bodies. But the question at once arises, What reason is there to suppose that such currents could possibly flow between the earth and the sun, acrossthat vast intervening region of space, a distance of more than 90,000,000 miles? And would not the resistance to such currents in transit be so enormous that the entire potential, however great, would have been practically lost long before reaching the sun? To this there is a complete and irrefutable answer, not based upon any abstract theory, but upon established fact. It is an absolute certainty that electrical currents of enormous quantity and high potential are constantly passing between the earth and the sun, and that these currents have so free a passage—far more free than through any metallic circuits that we know of—that they pass over this enormous distance absolutely without appreciable resistance. We may note in this connection the well-known facts, now being largely utilized, though the art is still in its infancy, of telegraphing and transmitting all sorts of electrical currents over large distances without wires or any conductors, except those furnished by nature.Of the currents between the earth and the sun, Professor Proctor, in his “Light Science for Leisure Hours,” says, “Remembering the influence which the sun has been found to exercise upon the magnetic needle, the question will naturally arise, Has the sun anything to do with magnetic storms? We have clear evidence that he has. On the 1st of September, 1859, Messrs. Carrington and Hodgson were observing the sun, one at Oxford and the other in London. Their scrutiny was directed to certain large spots which at that time marked the sun’s face. Suddenly a bright light was seen byeach observer to break out on the sun’s surface and to travel, slowly in appearance, but in reality at the rate of about seven thousand miles in a minute, across a part of the solar disk. Now, it was found afterwards that the self-registering magnetic instruments at Kew had madeat that very instanta strongly-marked jerk. It was learned that at that moment a magnetic storm prevailed in the West Indies, in South America, and in Australia. The signal men in the telegraph stations at Washington and Philadelphia received strong electric shocks; the pen of Bain’s telegraph was followed by a flame of fire; and in Norway the telegraphic machinery was set on fire. At night great auroras were seen in both hemispheres. It is impossible not to connect these startling magnetic indications with the remarkable appearance observed upon the sun’s disk. But there is other evidence. Magnetic storms prevail more commonly in some years than in others. In those years in which they occur most frequently it is found that the ordinary oscillations of the magnetic needle are more extensive than usual. Now, when these peculiarities had been noticed for many years, it was found that there was an alternate and systematic increase and diminution in intensity of magnetic action, and that the period of the variation was about eleven years. But at the same time a diligent observer had been recording the appearance of the sun’s face from day to day and from year to year. He had found that the solar spots are in some years more freely displayed than in others, and he had determined the period inwhich the spots had successively presented with maximum frequency to be about eleven years. On a comparison of the two sets of observations it was found (and has now been placed beyond a doubt by many years of continual observation) that magnetic perturbations are most energetic when the sun is most spotted, andvice versa. For so remarkable a phenomenon as this none but a cosmical cause can suffice. We can neither say that the spots cause the magnetic storms nor that the magnetic storms cause the spots. We must seek for a cause producing at once both sets of phenomena.” It will be observed that the phenomena seen in the sun were markedat the same instantby violent electric perturbations on earth. Hence something must have passed with the velocity of light, which we know to be at the rate of 188,000 miles per second, or in about eight minutes from the sun to the earth. But it is stated in “Electricity in the Service of Man,” page 82, that, “According to the theoretical calculations of Kirchhoff, as well as of Ayrton and Perry, the velocity of electricity in a wirewithout resistance would be equal to the velocity of light.” Hence we perceive that the apparent difficulty has vanished in the light of observed fact, and that currents of electricity do pass and are constantly passing between the earth and the sun without the slightest loss of speed,—that is to say, without resistance. We shall find in the sequel that the above phenomena were caused most probably by a partial interruption of a constant direct current from the earth to the sun, instead of by an opposite returncurrent from the sun to the earth. In further illustration of the above facts we quote the following, page 172, “Electricity in the Service of Man:” “Many attempts have been made to find a connection between the spots and prominences in the sun and the electrical phenomena on the earth. Professor Forster says that by numerous magnetic observations of the last thirty or forty years it has been proved that the formation of black spots on the surface of the sun, and the generation of pillars and clouds of glowing gases in the immediate neighborhood of the sun, stand in close connection with certain deviations in direction and intensity of the earth’s magnetic forces.” Professor Proctor, in his “Light Science for Leisure Hours,” says, “From all this it appears, incontestably, that there is an intimate connection between the causes of auroras and those of terrestrial magnetism …. The magnetic needle not only swayed responsively to auroras observable in the immediate neighborhood, but to auroras in progress hundreds and thousands of miles away. Nay, as inquiry progressed, it was discovered that the needles in our northern observatories are swayed by influences associated even with the occurrence of auroras around the southern polar regions …. Could we only associate auroras with terrestrial magnetism, we should still have done much to enhance the interest which the beautiful phenomenon is calculated to excite. But when once this association has been established, others of even greater interest are brought into recognition; for terrestrial magnetism has beenclearly shown to be influenced directly by the action of the sun …. We already begin to see, then, that auroras are associated in some mysterious way with the action of the solar rays. The phenomenon which had been looked on for so many ages as a mere spectacle, caused perhaps by some process in the upper regions of the air of a simple local character, has been brought into the range of planetary phenomena. As surely as the brilliant planets which deck the nocturnal skies are illuminated by the same orb which gives us our days and seasons, so are they subject to the same mysterious influence which causes the northern banners to wave respondently over the starlit depths of heaven. Nay, it is even probable that every flicker and coruscation of our auroral displays correspond with similar manifestations upon every planet which travels round the sun.” In Professor Ball’s late work, “In the High Heavens,” the author says, “Dr. Schuster suggests that there may be an electric connection between the sun and the planets. In fact, with some limitations, we might even assert that theremustbe such a connection. It is well known that great outbreaks on the sun have been immediately followed, I might almost say accompanied, by remarkable magnetic disturbances on the earth. The instances that are recorded of this connection are altogether too remarkable to be set aside as mere coincidences. Dr. Huggins has not referred in this connection to Hertz’s astonishing discoveries; but it seems quite possible that research along this line may throw light on the subject,at present so obscure,of the electric relation between the sun and the earth.” Of this common electrical relationship between our sun and the different planets, and of these with each other, Professor Proctor says, in his article, “Terrestrial Magnetism,” “Interesting as are the bonds of union which Copernicus and Kepler and Newton have traced in the relations of our system,it would seem as though we were approaching the traces of a yet more wonderful law of association. We see the earth’s magnetism responding to the solar influences, not merely in those rhythmic motions which belong to the periodic variations, but in sudden thrills affecting the whole framework of our globe. The magnetic storms which are called into action by such solar disturbances as the one of September, 1859, are, we may feel sure, not peculiar to our own earth. The other planets feel the same influence,—not, perhaps, in exactly the same way, but according to the constitution and physical habitudes which respectively belong to them. So that one can scarce conceive a subject of study at once more promising and more interesting.” Of these prophetic shadows which science often seems to cast before, Professor Nichol, in his “Architecture of the Heavens” (referring to Sir William Herschel), says, “Without difficulty or pretence he there casts aside an idea which had not been questioned before, unless in a few of those obscure, indefinite speculationswhich, strangely enough, often prelude important discoveries.” These facts are thus incontestably established: that electric currents of enormous energy and vast quantityare constantly passing without appreciable resistance and with the speed of light between the earth and the sun; that such currents cannot be conducted through vacua, or through dry gases, or through a dense medium; and that, whatever other matter may exist in the intervening space, such space is pervaded throughout by an attenuated vapor of such constitution and density that it will transmit such electrical currents with the highest conceivable efficiency. We know that such passage of these currents cannot depend upon the ether of space which is acted upon by the sun to produce the ethereal undulatory vibrations of light and heat, for, after we have produced the most perfect vacuum possible, we find that the rays of light continue to pass through it as freely as they pass through space, while currents of electricity cannot be made to pass at all. Hence we know to a certainty that the medium which transmits these enormous currents of electricity must be a vapor capable of conducting electricity, that it must hence be decomposable by the electric current, and that when decomposed one of its elements must consist of hydrogen gas and the other of oxygen; in other words, that this conducting medium must consist of attenuatedaqueousvapor, commingled doubtless with other vapors which themselves, like the acid of the acidulated water used in electrolysis, aid in the conduction of these enormous currents. We also know that such vapors in space will be necessarily attracted, by gravitation, around the solar and planetary bodies immersed therein, and must formcondensed vaporous atmospheres or cloud masses, and if these are decomposed by the passage of such currents of electricity, that hydrogen gas will be liberated at the solar galvanic pole and oxygen at the terrestrial or other planetary pole, precisely as we find to be the case in nature. Will such gaseous envelopes, then, have the same temperature for each gas when thus liberated, or will the hydrogen envelope of the sun be heated to incandescence, due to the passage of the electrical current?Electrical polarities of sun and planets. A, body of the planet; B, planetary electrosphere; C, body of the sun; D, solar electrosphere.The temperature of interplanetary space is probably very low. Of this Professor Ball says, “What this may be is a matter of some uncertainty, but from all the evidence available it seems plain that we may put it at not less than three hundred degrees below zero;” and the same author adds, “The temperature is taken to be sixty-four degrees below zero, being presumably that at the confines of the atmosphere.” Whatever the temperature of space, or its variations, may be, the passage of the planetaryelectricity through the condensed hydrogen envelope of the sun will produce great changes in the heat of that body and of the solar core within. While with a small electrolytic apparatus we find no special differences of temperature in the gases, with large quantities of electricity, driven at a high potential, we find that a new and startling result ensues. Something of this sort is seen in the operation of electric arc-light lamps, now in common use, in which two slightly separated carbon points are traversed by a current of considerable potential. The current is driven across the intervening space between the points, carrying with it an atmosphere of disintegrated carbon, through which the electricity is carried at its highest speed, and a most brilliant light is produced. In “Electricity in the Service of Man,” page 151, it is said, “We may conclude from this that the current does not cease when the arc of light is formed. The resistance of the arc seems to be only very slight; in fact, the current must be conducted by it.” Of the structure and constitution of the luminous electrosphere, or arc, produced in these lamps, “Professor J. A. Fleming,” says theScientific American, “has shown that the well-known color of the light of the electric arc from carbon points is due to the incandescence of the carbon filling the space between the positive and the negative rods. The true arc is here, and exists in a space filled with thevapor of carbon, which has a brilliant violet color. Examined by the spectroscope, the central axis of the carbon arc gives a spectrum marked bytwo bright violet bands. Outside this is an aureole of carbon vapor of yellow or golden color. The electrical strain of the arc occurs chieflyat the surface of the craterwhich forms at the end of the positive rod, where, in fact, the principal work of generating light is done; foreighty per cent. of the total light of the arc comes from the incandescent carbon at this place. Thus, in a sense, the arc light is mainly an incandescent light, the effect being produced by the layer of carbon which is being constantly evaporated at an extremely elevated temperature. Hence the light of the carbon arc is not, and can never be, white, as it is sometimes described as being, but must always be tinted violet by the carbon vapor normally present between the rods.”The significance of the above-quoted extract will be readily perceived when we come to consider the action of the direct planetary electrical currents upon the solar envelope, the effects in both cases being substantially identical. The quantity and intensity of the electric current, as it passes through the incandescent arc to the negative pole, and thence back to the dynamo, are diminished exactly in proportion to the energy expended in the generation of the light and heat of the arc. It is precisely the same as in the operation of a turbine water-wheel; if working at its highest efficiency, the discharged water is almost deprived of force: its gravity has been converted into work. In the electric light this conversion is only partial, owing to atmospheric and other conditions; but in thecase of the solar envelope and its core, it is nearly, if not altogether, perfect, so that the currents of electricity are almost entirely converted into light and heat, or expended in the electrolytic decomposition of the surrounding aqueous vapors, and do not reappear as electricity, but as converted solar energy. Brilliant, however, as the light rays are in a powerful arc lamp,—perhaps the nearest to solar light we can produce,—the obscure heat rays are far more numerous and powerful. On page 476 of the work just cited a table is given, showing the proportion of visible and invisible rays emitted by different illuminants, and with the electric lamp, even, ninety per cent. of all the rays emitted by the voltaic arc are heat rays, which are obscure and invisible. But the startling effects of electricity of large quantity and high potential, in the decomposition of water, are far more strikingly exhibited by an apparatus shown in 1893 at the Chicago Exhibition by a firm from Brussels, and which is described in theElectrical Reviewas follows: “An ordinary wooden pail is three-quarters filled with water slightly acidulated; a lead plate about nine inches broad by sixteen inches long dips to the bottom of the pail and is connected to an incandescent dynamo machine capable of giving over one hundred and fifty ampères. The iron rod, or article to be heated, is connected to the pole of the dynamo and simply dipped into the water; it immediately becomes heated and rapidly rises to a melting temperature; only that portion of the metal completely immersed becomes heated,and the heating is so rapid that neither the water nor that portion of the metal out of the water becomes very warm. Wrought iron and steel actually melt if long enough held under water. A carbon rod subjected to this process becomes amorphous carbon, proving that a temperature of at least four thousand degrees Centigrade has been reached, and it is stated that with two hundred and twenty volts’ pressure a temperature of eight thousand degrees Centigrade has been reached. There are various theories to account for this phenomenon, but from close observation it appears to be a case of arc heating. The moment the metal is plunged into the waterit is enveloped in hydrogen gasdecomposed from the water. This envelope of gas parts the water and metal, forming an arc, which raises the surrounding gaseous envelope to an enormous temperature; the metal surrounded by this arc is almost immediately raised to the same temperature.A flame of burning hydrogenappears around the metal on the surface of the water. The principle of the method is the same as that on which the burning of an arc light between two carbon points under water depends. An arc lamp will burn quite steadily under water if the connections are made water-proof; the arc itself requires no protection.”It will be seen that the process above described is precisely analogous to that involved in the problem of the sun’s energy. The planets correspond with the leaden plates, upon which oxygen is disengaged from the water, while at thesame moment the liberated hydrogen necessarily appears at the opposite pole. The generation of hydrogen gas forms an envelope or atmosphere of hydrogen around the sun which forces back the aqueous vapor. The current, in passing through this gaseous envelope to the metal core within, intensely heats the hydrogen, which rapidly communicates its rising heat to the central core. If this core is composed of metals, and the temperature be raised sufficiently high, which only depends upon the quantity and working pressure of the electricity employed, the metal core will be volatilized in whole or in part, and, if of mixed metals, we will find the presence of these elements revealed in the spectroscopic lines corresponding thereto, and the flames and flashes of hydrogen at the surfaces beyond the envelope, at the surface of contact with the matter of space, will be also seen. In fact, such an experiment, properly prepared, could be made to show roughly most of the phenomena of solar light and heat as they actually appear, such as sun-spots, prominences, jets, plumes, faculæ, the photosphere, chromosphere, absorption bands, vortical disturbances, metallic vapors, and the complete solar spectrum, with the different Fraunhofer lines. In the case of the sun, these currents must be measured by millions of ampères, and possibly by hundreds of millions of volts, instead of by mere hundreds, while the hydrogen envelope extends outward from the sun’s surface hundreds of thousands of miles until, perhaps, finally merged into the corona. As the currentspass from the planets and planetoids (for not only the larger planets, but all the planetary bodies of our system must contribute, if any of them contribute) to the sun, or rather to the sphere of its electrical action, without resistance, so long as these planets generate constant currents of the same, or nearly the same, potential, so long will the sun maintain his constant light and heat; if these are increased or diminished, the sun’s light and heat will be temporarily, but only temporarily, increased or diminished; and this process must continue, without further loss or change, indefinitely into the future. Whatever the sun may gain by increment of meteoric masses may pass for what it is worth, but the gradual contraction of his volume cannot proceed while his present temperature is maintained by the passage of such currents,—that is to say, his light and heat will remain constant, and also his mass and volume, so long as the electric currents which pass from the planets to the sun and the constitution of space which surrounds the sun and planets themselves remain constant.Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity.Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity.It now remains to consider how such enormous currents of electricity can be generated and maintained. We know, of course, that chemical changes cannot operate to produce them. They must be derived from something contained in or diffused through interplanetary space, and the planets themselves must be the means by which such currents of electricity are brought into effective operation. On our own earth we have many kindsof mechanically-constructed electrical apparatus whichgenerateelectricity, to use a popular expression, or which, more properly, separate the opposite potentials from an unstable electrical tension or equilibrium of the matter of space. These machines practically take positive electricity from the mutually-balanced electric potentials of which the earth and its surrounding gaseous envelope are the vast common storehouse, in such manner that the positive electricity thus drawn out from and again passing into the common storehouse shall, during such transit, be compelled to pass through channels which will cause it to do work, at the expense of its potential or pressure, during its passage, or in which electricity is raised in its electro-motive force from a lower to a higher potential or pressure, just as the pressure of water is increased when delivered from a greater or a still greater height, or steam, when confined in space under higher and still higher temperatures. But none of these machines actuallygenerateelectricityab initio; they merely put into effective operation the pre-existing force. The mass of the earth is of irregularly negative polarity, the air above is positive, and as weascend, the potential, or voltage, or pressure increases at a nearly uniform rate of from twenty to forty volts for each foot. The earth is thus surrounded by an electrosphere as well as an atmosphere, and the two are not coincident, for while the pressure of the atmosphere diminishes as we ascend, that of the electrosphere increases. The moon, too, and each planet must have its electrosphere, and around the sun’s core we can see the solar electrosphere in its visible glory. Thus, all our planets rotate upon their axes and revolve around the sun, each surrounded by an enormous electrosphere, just as an electrical induction machine is surrounded, when in operation, with an electrosphere of its own, and which, by breaking connection with the conductor which carries away its current, becomes, when shown in a darkened room, clearly visible. In “Electricity in the Service of Man” it is said, page 63, “The inductive action of the machine is quite as rapid and as powerful when both collectors are removed and nothing is left but the two rotating disks and their respective contact or neutralizing brushes. The whole apparatus then bristles with electricity, and if viewed in the dark presents a most beautiful appearance, being literally bathed with luminous brush discharges.” This is a true aurora.The Aurora Borealis. (From “Electricity in the Service of Man.”)The Aurora Borealis. (From “Electricity in the Service of Man.”)Diffused brush discharge of electrical machine, when operating with its current cut off or interrupted between machine and principal condenser.Diffused brush discharge of electrical machine, when operating with its current cut off or interrupted between machine and principal condenser.Let us now examine some of these more recent electric machines,—the later induction, not the older frictional machines, for it is obvious that the rotation of the planets, if they operate as electric generators, or separators, must act by inductionand not by friction. The frictional machines are of the old type and are well known from the books; in these a glass disk or cylinder is rubbed upon in its rotation by an amalgamated (so called) friction pad fixed securely to the bed of the machine. But more recently these have been replaced by far more powerful and simple machines which operate entirely by induction, like approaching thunderclouds, for instance, and in which one or more glass disks are merely rotated rapidly and freely in the air, these disks having a number of light metallic sectors, such as bits of tin-foil, pasted on their outer sides at equal radial intervals, and with metallic collecting brushes which, however, barely graze the surfaces of the rotating disk. There is no pressure and no friction, except that of the disks as they freely revolve in the atmosphere.In the above-quoted work, page 61, is a description of Wimshurst’s influence machine, one of the most recent and most powerful, which we condense as follows: This machine was produced about 1883. It consists of two circular disks of thin glass fourteen and one-half inches in diameter in the sample described, attached at their centers to loose bosses, so as to be rotated by cords and pulleys operated by a handle, in opposite directions. The disks rotate parallel with each other and are not more than one-eighth of an inch apart, and have their surfaces well varnished; and attached by cement to their outer surfaces are twelve or more radial, sector-shaped plates of thin brass- or tin-foil, disposed around the disks at equal distances apart. Thesesectors take the place of the “inductors” of Holtz’s instrument, and appear to act also as carriers, though the exact nature of their action is somewhat mysterious. It appears, however, probable that those acting for the time as carriers on the one disk act at the same time as inductors on the other. The two sectors on the same diameter of each disk, at opposite sides of the center, are twice in each revolution momentarily placed in metallic connection with one another by means of a pair of fine wire brushes attached to the ends of a bent metal rod loosely pivoted at the center of each disk, the metal sectorsjust grazingthe tips of the wire brushes as they pass. There is one of these bent rods on the outside of each disk, and their position as pivoted on their center can be varied at will, both with reference to the one on the opposite side and to the position of the fixed collecting combs. The efficiency of the machine varies with their position, and the maximum appears to be generally when the brushes touch the disks on diameters crossing the position of the collecting combs at about forty-five degrees, and with the bent rods on opposite sides at right angles to each other. The collecting combs are simple forks with collecting points turned inward, which forks embrace the opposite sides of the disks outside, which freely rotate between them, and they are supported on insulated posts. These supports may be small Leyden jars or condensers, with discharging knobs, or may be connected with similar condensers at a distance, or arranged in batteries or otherwise. The presenceof the collecting combs is not necessary to the operation of the machine, their sole function being to carry away the positive electricity as generated. The machine is self-exciting, and it is believed that theinitial actionmust be due to friction in the layer of air contained between the plates, which, as above stated, are only about one-eighth of an inch apart. It is nearly independent of atmospheric conditions, and not liable to reverse its polarity, as are the Voss machines. The Voss machine uses a larger glass disk which does not rotate, but is fixed, and which has a central opening three inches wide, with a different arrangement of tin-foil disks or sectors, and a smaller glass disk rotates parallel with it. The Holtz machine is somewhat similar, using a single rotating, well-varnished glass disk revolving opposite a well-varnished larger disk, the latter provided with three sector-shaped openings or windows, with varnished paper inductors or flaps passing through these windows so as to touch the revolving disk. There are also two series of fine metal points held by brass bars provided with insulated handles and discharging knobs.It is only necessary to give a general idea of the construction and operation of such machines, as their specific construction can be readily learned from the books. Of the mode of operation, however, it is said, “What takes place when the machine is in action is of a very complicated nature, and can hardly be said to be perfectly understood.” With a Wimshurst machine having disks of a diameter of fourteen and one-half inches “there is producedunder ordinary atmospheric conditions a powerful spark discharge between the knobs when they are separated by a distance of four and one-half inches, a pint size Leyden jar being in connection with each knob (one on each opposite diameter of the two disks), and these four-and-one-half-inch discharges take place in regular succession at every two and a half turns of the handle. It is usual to construct the machine with small Leyden jars or condensers attached to conductors, by which the spark is materially increased. A machine has been constructed with plates seven feet in diameter, which, it was believed, would give sparks thirty inches long; but no Leyden jars have been found to withstand its discharge, all being pierced by the enormous tension.” Three of Toepler’s induction machines (see page 59, “Electricity in the Service of Man”), connected together, gave a current which maintained a platinum wire one-fifth of a millimeter thick continually at a red heat, and was also capable of decomposing water.
CHAPTER III.THE MODE OF SOLAR ENERGY.
But is there such an available force? There is one, and only one,—electricity, when properly generated and suitably applied. It is an axiom of electrical science that any fluid which will at all conduct a current of electricity can be decomposed by a current of electricity. (See Urbanitsky’s work, “Electricity in the Service of Man,” Cassell’s edition, page 154.) It is there stated (page 152), “We have frequently had occasion to mention certain chemical effects of electricity,—namely, the decomposition of gaseous compounds into simple gases.” Page 157, “Whatever the substances we expose to the action of the galvanic current, decomposition takes place proportional to the strength of the current.” Page 152, “Hydrogen is always evolved at the negative pole of the battery and oxygen at the positive pole. The gases can then be collected in different tubes, the hydrogen tube receiving twice as much gas as the oxygen tube; since water consists of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen, it follows that the galvanic current decomposes water into its constituents. As chemically pure water has so great a resistance as almost to force us to consider it a non-conductor, it is generally acidulated with sulphuric acid. The smallest amount of acid diminishes theresistance considerably. The silent discharge is far more effective in bringing about this transformation than the spark discharge.” Page 37, “Gases are bad conductors of electricity; if it had been otherwise, we should never have become acquainted with electricity, as it would have been conducted away by the air as fast as it was generated. The vacuum also does not conduct electricity, butmoist airbecomes a partial conductor. Moist air also will spoil the insulation of non-conducting supports. All bodies are more or less hygroscopic, and the moisture condensed on their surfacesthus turns the best insulators into conductors. Change of temperature also influences conductivity.” Page 63, “When using induction machines, the moisture of the air often causes experiments to fail, especially before large audiences. The atmosphere becomes saturated with moisture, and it is often impossible to get the machine in working order.” Several desiccating devices are mentioned by the authors of this work, as used with such machines, to prevent such dissipation or conduction of electricity from the machine into space by the aqueous vapor of the atmosphere. In describing the aurora borealis (page 93), these authors say, “The rarefied air is nearer the earth at the poles than the equator, in consequence of the earth’s centrifugal motion, and, the earth being negatively electrified, negative electricity will flow from this point, directed against thepositively electrified upper layers of rarefied air.” Same work, pages 127, 128, “The resistance (in liquids) diminishesas the temperature increases, a result which is exactly opposite to what occurs with metals. Conductivity for carbon increases with the temperature, thus agreeing with the action of liquids.” Page 133, “To determine the resistance in liquids, the above methods cannot be employed, liquids being decomposed by the electrical current.” Referring to the voltaic arc and the spark of the induction apparatus (page 200), it is said, “Dry air under great pressure offers a high resistance, but aperfect vacuum is a perfect insulator, and between these extremes there are degrees of rarification which admit of a flow of electricity.” In general, it is said that electrical decomposition requires that the electrolyte be in liquid form, but this is not universally true, and throughout interplanetary space may not be true at all. In Ferguson’s work on Electricity, it is stated that, “The passage of electricity through compound gases in a state of great rarity, as in the so-called vacuum tubes, frequently separates them up into their constituents.” So, also, the opinion that electricity cannot be readily conducted through dry gases is refuted by the play of the auroral streamers. The distance from the surface of the earth of these electrical waves and the auroral arch is variously estimated at from seventy to two hundred and sixty-five miles, and in one instance “at a height of from four thousand to six thousand miles;” see article in Appleton’s Cyclopædia. Certainly there could be no sensible moisture at the temperatures there prevalent, and especially at night and during thefall and winter months when these displays are very frequent. Whether the currents be due to induction, as between neighboring bodies one of which is electrified, or from direct emission, as in brush discharges, there must obviously be some medium of contact and continuity for the free transference of electrical energy through space. Regarding therationaleof electrolysis (“Electricity in the Service of Man”), after discussing certain other theories, the authors say, “Clausius, too, assumes an electrified condition of the molecules of each electrode, but he neither attributes to the galvanic current the force of direction nor power of decomposing. He points out that both the molecules of fluids and also their atoms are in continual motion. The atoms in molecules of fluids are held together but by a moderate force, and the molecules themselves constantly undergo changes both of synthesis and analysis. The galvanic current merely effects a regulated motion of the atoms; the positive ions are attracted by the negative electrode, and the negative ions by the positive electrode, and by this means are separated out from the liquid.” Page 91, “The upper layers of air are more or less electrified, so as to have a potential differing from that of the earth, buthow their electrical condition has been produced is not at present known. Condensation of water-vapor is supposed to produce electricity. Close to the earth the air has little or no electricity; the farther from the earth the greater the amount of electricity in the air.” Referring to the sparking discharge, it issaid, page 75, “The density of the air, however, has to be taken into account; the sparking distance is lessened in denser air, and becomes greater when the atmospheric pressure is diminished. Not only the density, but also the chemical composition of the medium influences the sparking distance. Faraday found the distances considerably less in chlorine gas, buttwice as long in hydrogen gas as in air.” Page 74, “The sparking distance increases at a somewhat greater rate than the difference of potential of the discharging bodies …. When the sparking distance becomes very great … it is proportional to the difference of potential.” Page 91, “There is a difference of potential between the earth and points in the air above. In fine weather the potential is higher the higher we go, increasing usually at the rate oftwenty to forty volts for each foot.”It will be seen that, continued upward at this rate, the increased electrical pressure for each mile of elevation would be between 100,000 and 200,000 volts, or for each one hundred miles more than 10,000,000 volts; and at an altitude of one thousand miles, if carried so far, the potential would be between one and two hundred million volts, an electrical pressure quite inconceivable to us. Such a potential in currents of enormous quantity continually flowing from the earth to the sun would certainly decompose any aqueous vapors condensed around these bodies. But the question at once arises, What reason is there to suppose that such currents could possibly flow between the earth and the sun, acrossthat vast intervening region of space, a distance of more than 90,000,000 miles? And would not the resistance to such currents in transit be so enormous that the entire potential, however great, would have been practically lost long before reaching the sun? To this there is a complete and irrefutable answer, not based upon any abstract theory, but upon established fact. It is an absolute certainty that electrical currents of enormous quantity and high potential are constantly passing between the earth and the sun, and that these currents have so free a passage—far more free than through any metallic circuits that we know of—that they pass over this enormous distance absolutely without appreciable resistance. We may note in this connection the well-known facts, now being largely utilized, though the art is still in its infancy, of telegraphing and transmitting all sorts of electrical currents over large distances without wires or any conductors, except those furnished by nature.Of the currents between the earth and the sun, Professor Proctor, in his “Light Science for Leisure Hours,” says, “Remembering the influence which the sun has been found to exercise upon the magnetic needle, the question will naturally arise, Has the sun anything to do with magnetic storms? We have clear evidence that he has. On the 1st of September, 1859, Messrs. Carrington and Hodgson were observing the sun, one at Oxford and the other in London. Their scrutiny was directed to certain large spots which at that time marked the sun’s face. Suddenly a bright light was seen byeach observer to break out on the sun’s surface and to travel, slowly in appearance, but in reality at the rate of about seven thousand miles in a minute, across a part of the solar disk. Now, it was found afterwards that the self-registering magnetic instruments at Kew had madeat that very instanta strongly-marked jerk. It was learned that at that moment a magnetic storm prevailed in the West Indies, in South America, and in Australia. The signal men in the telegraph stations at Washington and Philadelphia received strong electric shocks; the pen of Bain’s telegraph was followed by a flame of fire; and in Norway the telegraphic machinery was set on fire. At night great auroras were seen in both hemispheres. It is impossible not to connect these startling magnetic indications with the remarkable appearance observed upon the sun’s disk. But there is other evidence. Magnetic storms prevail more commonly in some years than in others. In those years in which they occur most frequently it is found that the ordinary oscillations of the magnetic needle are more extensive than usual. Now, when these peculiarities had been noticed for many years, it was found that there was an alternate and systematic increase and diminution in intensity of magnetic action, and that the period of the variation was about eleven years. But at the same time a diligent observer had been recording the appearance of the sun’s face from day to day and from year to year. He had found that the solar spots are in some years more freely displayed than in others, and he had determined the period inwhich the spots had successively presented with maximum frequency to be about eleven years. On a comparison of the two sets of observations it was found (and has now been placed beyond a doubt by many years of continual observation) that magnetic perturbations are most energetic when the sun is most spotted, andvice versa. For so remarkable a phenomenon as this none but a cosmical cause can suffice. We can neither say that the spots cause the magnetic storms nor that the magnetic storms cause the spots. We must seek for a cause producing at once both sets of phenomena.” It will be observed that the phenomena seen in the sun were markedat the same instantby violent electric perturbations on earth. Hence something must have passed with the velocity of light, which we know to be at the rate of 188,000 miles per second, or in about eight minutes from the sun to the earth. But it is stated in “Electricity in the Service of Man,” page 82, that, “According to the theoretical calculations of Kirchhoff, as well as of Ayrton and Perry, the velocity of electricity in a wirewithout resistance would be equal to the velocity of light.” Hence we perceive that the apparent difficulty has vanished in the light of observed fact, and that currents of electricity do pass and are constantly passing between the earth and the sun without the slightest loss of speed,—that is to say, without resistance. We shall find in the sequel that the above phenomena were caused most probably by a partial interruption of a constant direct current from the earth to the sun, instead of by an opposite returncurrent from the sun to the earth. In further illustration of the above facts we quote the following, page 172, “Electricity in the Service of Man:” “Many attempts have been made to find a connection between the spots and prominences in the sun and the electrical phenomena on the earth. Professor Forster says that by numerous magnetic observations of the last thirty or forty years it has been proved that the formation of black spots on the surface of the sun, and the generation of pillars and clouds of glowing gases in the immediate neighborhood of the sun, stand in close connection with certain deviations in direction and intensity of the earth’s magnetic forces.” Professor Proctor, in his “Light Science for Leisure Hours,” says, “From all this it appears, incontestably, that there is an intimate connection between the causes of auroras and those of terrestrial magnetism …. The magnetic needle not only swayed responsively to auroras observable in the immediate neighborhood, but to auroras in progress hundreds and thousands of miles away. Nay, as inquiry progressed, it was discovered that the needles in our northern observatories are swayed by influences associated even with the occurrence of auroras around the southern polar regions …. Could we only associate auroras with terrestrial magnetism, we should still have done much to enhance the interest which the beautiful phenomenon is calculated to excite. But when once this association has been established, others of even greater interest are brought into recognition; for terrestrial magnetism has beenclearly shown to be influenced directly by the action of the sun …. We already begin to see, then, that auroras are associated in some mysterious way with the action of the solar rays. The phenomenon which had been looked on for so many ages as a mere spectacle, caused perhaps by some process in the upper regions of the air of a simple local character, has been brought into the range of planetary phenomena. As surely as the brilliant planets which deck the nocturnal skies are illuminated by the same orb which gives us our days and seasons, so are they subject to the same mysterious influence which causes the northern banners to wave respondently over the starlit depths of heaven. Nay, it is even probable that every flicker and coruscation of our auroral displays correspond with similar manifestations upon every planet which travels round the sun.” In Professor Ball’s late work, “In the High Heavens,” the author says, “Dr. Schuster suggests that there may be an electric connection between the sun and the planets. In fact, with some limitations, we might even assert that theremustbe such a connection. It is well known that great outbreaks on the sun have been immediately followed, I might almost say accompanied, by remarkable magnetic disturbances on the earth. The instances that are recorded of this connection are altogether too remarkable to be set aside as mere coincidences. Dr. Huggins has not referred in this connection to Hertz’s astonishing discoveries; but it seems quite possible that research along this line may throw light on the subject,at present so obscure,of the electric relation between the sun and the earth.” Of this common electrical relationship between our sun and the different planets, and of these with each other, Professor Proctor says, in his article, “Terrestrial Magnetism,” “Interesting as are the bonds of union which Copernicus and Kepler and Newton have traced in the relations of our system,it would seem as though we were approaching the traces of a yet more wonderful law of association. We see the earth’s magnetism responding to the solar influences, not merely in those rhythmic motions which belong to the periodic variations, but in sudden thrills affecting the whole framework of our globe. The magnetic storms which are called into action by such solar disturbances as the one of September, 1859, are, we may feel sure, not peculiar to our own earth. The other planets feel the same influence,—not, perhaps, in exactly the same way, but according to the constitution and physical habitudes which respectively belong to them. So that one can scarce conceive a subject of study at once more promising and more interesting.” Of these prophetic shadows which science often seems to cast before, Professor Nichol, in his “Architecture of the Heavens” (referring to Sir William Herschel), says, “Without difficulty or pretence he there casts aside an idea which had not been questioned before, unless in a few of those obscure, indefinite speculationswhich, strangely enough, often prelude important discoveries.” These facts are thus incontestably established: that electric currents of enormous energy and vast quantityare constantly passing without appreciable resistance and with the speed of light between the earth and the sun; that such currents cannot be conducted through vacua, or through dry gases, or through a dense medium; and that, whatever other matter may exist in the intervening space, such space is pervaded throughout by an attenuated vapor of such constitution and density that it will transmit such electrical currents with the highest conceivable efficiency. We know that such passage of these currents cannot depend upon the ether of space which is acted upon by the sun to produce the ethereal undulatory vibrations of light and heat, for, after we have produced the most perfect vacuum possible, we find that the rays of light continue to pass through it as freely as they pass through space, while currents of electricity cannot be made to pass at all. Hence we know to a certainty that the medium which transmits these enormous currents of electricity must be a vapor capable of conducting electricity, that it must hence be decomposable by the electric current, and that when decomposed one of its elements must consist of hydrogen gas and the other of oxygen; in other words, that this conducting medium must consist of attenuatedaqueousvapor, commingled doubtless with other vapors which themselves, like the acid of the acidulated water used in electrolysis, aid in the conduction of these enormous currents. We also know that such vapors in space will be necessarily attracted, by gravitation, around the solar and planetary bodies immersed therein, and must formcondensed vaporous atmospheres or cloud masses, and if these are decomposed by the passage of such currents of electricity, that hydrogen gas will be liberated at the solar galvanic pole and oxygen at the terrestrial or other planetary pole, precisely as we find to be the case in nature. Will such gaseous envelopes, then, have the same temperature for each gas when thus liberated, or will the hydrogen envelope of the sun be heated to incandescence, due to the passage of the electrical current?Electrical polarities of sun and planets. A, body of the planet; B, planetary electrosphere; C, body of the sun; D, solar electrosphere.The temperature of interplanetary space is probably very low. Of this Professor Ball says, “What this may be is a matter of some uncertainty, but from all the evidence available it seems plain that we may put it at not less than three hundred degrees below zero;” and the same author adds, “The temperature is taken to be sixty-four degrees below zero, being presumably that at the confines of the atmosphere.” Whatever the temperature of space, or its variations, may be, the passage of the planetaryelectricity through the condensed hydrogen envelope of the sun will produce great changes in the heat of that body and of the solar core within. While with a small electrolytic apparatus we find no special differences of temperature in the gases, with large quantities of electricity, driven at a high potential, we find that a new and startling result ensues. Something of this sort is seen in the operation of electric arc-light lamps, now in common use, in which two slightly separated carbon points are traversed by a current of considerable potential. The current is driven across the intervening space between the points, carrying with it an atmosphere of disintegrated carbon, through which the electricity is carried at its highest speed, and a most brilliant light is produced. In “Electricity in the Service of Man,” page 151, it is said, “We may conclude from this that the current does not cease when the arc of light is formed. The resistance of the arc seems to be only very slight; in fact, the current must be conducted by it.” Of the structure and constitution of the luminous electrosphere, or arc, produced in these lamps, “Professor J. A. Fleming,” says theScientific American, “has shown that the well-known color of the light of the electric arc from carbon points is due to the incandescence of the carbon filling the space between the positive and the negative rods. The true arc is here, and exists in a space filled with thevapor of carbon, which has a brilliant violet color. Examined by the spectroscope, the central axis of the carbon arc gives a spectrum marked bytwo bright violet bands. Outside this is an aureole of carbon vapor of yellow or golden color. The electrical strain of the arc occurs chieflyat the surface of the craterwhich forms at the end of the positive rod, where, in fact, the principal work of generating light is done; foreighty per cent. of the total light of the arc comes from the incandescent carbon at this place. Thus, in a sense, the arc light is mainly an incandescent light, the effect being produced by the layer of carbon which is being constantly evaporated at an extremely elevated temperature. Hence the light of the carbon arc is not, and can never be, white, as it is sometimes described as being, but must always be tinted violet by the carbon vapor normally present between the rods.”The significance of the above-quoted extract will be readily perceived when we come to consider the action of the direct planetary electrical currents upon the solar envelope, the effects in both cases being substantially identical. The quantity and intensity of the electric current, as it passes through the incandescent arc to the negative pole, and thence back to the dynamo, are diminished exactly in proportion to the energy expended in the generation of the light and heat of the arc. It is precisely the same as in the operation of a turbine water-wheel; if working at its highest efficiency, the discharged water is almost deprived of force: its gravity has been converted into work. In the electric light this conversion is only partial, owing to atmospheric and other conditions; but in thecase of the solar envelope and its core, it is nearly, if not altogether, perfect, so that the currents of electricity are almost entirely converted into light and heat, or expended in the electrolytic decomposition of the surrounding aqueous vapors, and do not reappear as electricity, but as converted solar energy. Brilliant, however, as the light rays are in a powerful arc lamp,—perhaps the nearest to solar light we can produce,—the obscure heat rays are far more numerous and powerful. On page 476 of the work just cited a table is given, showing the proportion of visible and invisible rays emitted by different illuminants, and with the electric lamp, even, ninety per cent. of all the rays emitted by the voltaic arc are heat rays, which are obscure and invisible. But the startling effects of electricity of large quantity and high potential, in the decomposition of water, are far more strikingly exhibited by an apparatus shown in 1893 at the Chicago Exhibition by a firm from Brussels, and which is described in theElectrical Reviewas follows: “An ordinary wooden pail is three-quarters filled with water slightly acidulated; a lead plate about nine inches broad by sixteen inches long dips to the bottom of the pail and is connected to an incandescent dynamo machine capable of giving over one hundred and fifty ampères. The iron rod, or article to be heated, is connected to the pole of the dynamo and simply dipped into the water; it immediately becomes heated and rapidly rises to a melting temperature; only that portion of the metal completely immersed becomes heated,and the heating is so rapid that neither the water nor that portion of the metal out of the water becomes very warm. Wrought iron and steel actually melt if long enough held under water. A carbon rod subjected to this process becomes amorphous carbon, proving that a temperature of at least four thousand degrees Centigrade has been reached, and it is stated that with two hundred and twenty volts’ pressure a temperature of eight thousand degrees Centigrade has been reached. There are various theories to account for this phenomenon, but from close observation it appears to be a case of arc heating. The moment the metal is plunged into the waterit is enveloped in hydrogen gasdecomposed from the water. This envelope of gas parts the water and metal, forming an arc, which raises the surrounding gaseous envelope to an enormous temperature; the metal surrounded by this arc is almost immediately raised to the same temperature.A flame of burning hydrogenappears around the metal on the surface of the water. The principle of the method is the same as that on which the burning of an arc light between two carbon points under water depends. An arc lamp will burn quite steadily under water if the connections are made water-proof; the arc itself requires no protection.”It will be seen that the process above described is precisely analogous to that involved in the problem of the sun’s energy. The planets correspond with the leaden plates, upon which oxygen is disengaged from the water, while at thesame moment the liberated hydrogen necessarily appears at the opposite pole. The generation of hydrogen gas forms an envelope or atmosphere of hydrogen around the sun which forces back the aqueous vapor. The current, in passing through this gaseous envelope to the metal core within, intensely heats the hydrogen, which rapidly communicates its rising heat to the central core. If this core is composed of metals, and the temperature be raised sufficiently high, which only depends upon the quantity and working pressure of the electricity employed, the metal core will be volatilized in whole or in part, and, if of mixed metals, we will find the presence of these elements revealed in the spectroscopic lines corresponding thereto, and the flames and flashes of hydrogen at the surfaces beyond the envelope, at the surface of contact with the matter of space, will be also seen. In fact, such an experiment, properly prepared, could be made to show roughly most of the phenomena of solar light and heat as they actually appear, such as sun-spots, prominences, jets, plumes, faculæ, the photosphere, chromosphere, absorption bands, vortical disturbances, metallic vapors, and the complete solar spectrum, with the different Fraunhofer lines. In the case of the sun, these currents must be measured by millions of ampères, and possibly by hundreds of millions of volts, instead of by mere hundreds, while the hydrogen envelope extends outward from the sun’s surface hundreds of thousands of miles until, perhaps, finally merged into the corona. As the currentspass from the planets and planetoids (for not only the larger planets, but all the planetary bodies of our system must contribute, if any of them contribute) to the sun, or rather to the sphere of its electrical action, without resistance, so long as these planets generate constant currents of the same, or nearly the same, potential, so long will the sun maintain his constant light and heat; if these are increased or diminished, the sun’s light and heat will be temporarily, but only temporarily, increased or diminished; and this process must continue, without further loss or change, indefinitely into the future. Whatever the sun may gain by increment of meteoric masses may pass for what it is worth, but the gradual contraction of his volume cannot proceed while his present temperature is maintained by the passage of such currents,—that is to say, his light and heat will remain constant, and also his mass and volume, so long as the electric currents which pass from the planets to the sun and the constitution of space which surrounds the sun and planets themselves remain constant.Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity.Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity.It now remains to consider how such enormous currents of electricity can be generated and maintained. We know, of course, that chemical changes cannot operate to produce them. They must be derived from something contained in or diffused through interplanetary space, and the planets themselves must be the means by which such currents of electricity are brought into effective operation. On our own earth we have many kindsof mechanically-constructed electrical apparatus whichgenerateelectricity, to use a popular expression, or which, more properly, separate the opposite potentials from an unstable electrical tension or equilibrium of the matter of space. These machines practically take positive electricity from the mutually-balanced electric potentials of which the earth and its surrounding gaseous envelope are the vast common storehouse, in such manner that the positive electricity thus drawn out from and again passing into the common storehouse shall, during such transit, be compelled to pass through channels which will cause it to do work, at the expense of its potential or pressure, during its passage, or in which electricity is raised in its electro-motive force from a lower to a higher potential or pressure, just as the pressure of water is increased when delivered from a greater or a still greater height, or steam, when confined in space under higher and still higher temperatures. But none of these machines actuallygenerateelectricityab initio; they merely put into effective operation the pre-existing force. The mass of the earth is of irregularly negative polarity, the air above is positive, and as weascend, the potential, or voltage, or pressure increases at a nearly uniform rate of from twenty to forty volts for each foot. The earth is thus surrounded by an electrosphere as well as an atmosphere, and the two are not coincident, for while the pressure of the atmosphere diminishes as we ascend, that of the electrosphere increases. The moon, too, and each planet must have its electrosphere, and around the sun’s core we can see the solar electrosphere in its visible glory. Thus, all our planets rotate upon their axes and revolve around the sun, each surrounded by an enormous electrosphere, just as an electrical induction machine is surrounded, when in operation, with an electrosphere of its own, and which, by breaking connection with the conductor which carries away its current, becomes, when shown in a darkened room, clearly visible. In “Electricity in the Service of Man” it is said, page 63, “The inductive action of the machine is quite as rapid and as powerful when both collectors are removed and nothing is left but the two rotating disks and their respective contact or neutralizing brushes. The whole apparatus then bristles with electricity, and if viewed in the dark presents a most beautiful appearance, being literally bathed with luminous brush discharges.” This is a true aurora.The Aurora Borealis. (From “Electricity in the Service of Man.”)The Aurora Borealis. (From “Electricity in the Service of Man.”)Diffused brush discharge of electrical machine, when operating with its current cut off or interrupted between machine and principal condenser.Diffused brush discharge of electrical machine, when operating with its current cut off or interrupted between machine and principal condenser.Let us now examine some of these more recent electric machines,—the later induction, not the older frictional machines, for it is obvious that the rotation of the planets, if they operate as electric generators, or separators, must act by inductionand not by friction. The frictional machines are of the old type and are well known from the books; in these a glass disk or cylinder is rubbed upon in its rotation by an amalgamated (so called) friction pad fixed securely to the bed of the machine. But more recently these have been replaced by far more powerful and simple machines which operate entirely by induction, like approaching thunderclouds, for instance, and in which one or more glass disks are merely rotated rapidly and freely in the air, these disks having a number of light metallic sectors, such as bits of tin-foil, pasted on their outer sides at equal radial intervals, and with metallic collecting brushes which, however, barely graze the surfaces of the rotating disk. There is no pressure and no friction, except that of the disks as they freely revolve in the atmosphere.In the above-quoted work, page 61, is a description of Wimshurst’s influence machine, one of the most recent and most powerful, which we condense as follows: This machine was produced about 1883. It consists of two circular disks of thin glass fourteen and one-half inches in diameter in the sample described, attached at their centers to loose bosses, so as to be rotated by cords and pulleys operated by a handle, in opposite directions. The disks rotate parallel with each other and are not more than one-eighth of an inch apart, and have their surfaces well varnished; and attached by cement to their outer surfaces are twelve or more radial, sector-shaped plates of thin brass- or tin-foil, disposed around the disks at equal distances apart. Thesesectors take the place of the “inductors” of Holtz’s instrument, and appear to act also as carriers, though the exact nature of their action is somewhat mysterious. It appears, however, probable that those acting for the time as carriers on the one disk act at the same time as inductors on the other. The two sectors on the same diameter of each disk, at opposite sides of the center, are twice in each revolution momentarily placed in metallic connection with one another by means of a pair of fine wire brushes attached to the ends of a bent metal rod loosely pivoted at the center of each disk, the metal sectorsjust grazingthe tips of the wire brushes as they pass. There is one of these bent rods on the outside of each disk, and their position as pivoted on their center can be varied at will, both with reference to the one on the opposite side and to the position of the fixed collecting combs. The efficiency of the machine varies with their position, and the maximum appears to be generally when the brushes touch the disks on diameters crossing the position of the collecting combs at about forty-five degrees, and with the bent rods on opposite sides at right angles to each other. The collecting combs are simple forks with collecting points turned inward, which forks embrace the opposite sides of the disks outside, which freely rotate between them, and they are supported on insulated posts. These supports may be small Leyden jars or condensers, with discharging knobs, or may be connected with similar condensers at a distance, or arranged in batteries or otherwise. The presenceof the collecting combs is not necessary to the operation of the machine, their sole function being to carry away the positive electricity as generated. The machine is self-exciting, and it is believed that theinitial actionmust be due to friction in the layer of air contained between the plates, which, as above stated, are only about one-eighth of an inch apart. It is nearly independent of atmospheric conditions, and not liable to reverse its polarity, as are the Voss machines. The Voss machine uses a larger glass disk which does not rotate, but is fixed, and which has a central opening three inches wide, with a different arrangement of tin-foil disks or sectors, and a smaller glass disk rotates parallel with it. The Holtz machine is somewhat similar, using a single rotating, well-varnished glass disk revolving opposite a well-varnished larger disk, the latter provided with three sector-shaped openings or windows, with varnished paper inductors or flaps passing through these windows so as to touch the revolving disk. There are also two series of fine metal points held by brass bars provided with insulated handles and discharging knobs.It is only necessary to give a general idea of the construction and operation of such machines, as their specific construction can be readily learned from the books. Of the mode of operation, however, it is said, “What takes place when the machine is in action is of a very complicated nature, and can hardly be said to be perfectly understood.” With a Wimshurst machine having disks of a diameter of fourteen and one-half inches “there is producedunder ordinary atmospheric conditions a powerful spark discharge between the knobs when they are separated by a distance of four and one-half inches, a pint size Leyden jar being in connection with each knob (one on each opposite diameter of the two disks), and these four-and-one-half-inch discharges take place in regular succession at every two and a half turns of the handle. It is usual to construct the machine with small Leyden jars or condensers attached to conductors, by which the spark is materially increased. A machine has been constructed with plates seven feet in diameter, which, it was believed, would give sparks thirty inches long; but no Leyden jars have been found to withstand its discharge, all being pierced by the enormous tension.” Three of Toepler’s induction machines (see page 59, “Electricity in the Service of Man”), connected together, gave a current which maintained a platinum wire one-fifth of a millimeter thick continually at a red heat, and was also capable of decomposing water.
But is there such an available force? There is one, and only one,—electricity, when properly generated and suitably applied. It is an axiom of electrical science that any fluid which will at all conduct a current of electricity can be decomposed by a current of electricity. (See Urbanitsky’s work, “Electricity in the Service of Man,” Cassell’s edition, page 154.) It is there stated (page 152), “We have frequently had occasion to mention certain chemical effects of electricity,—namely, the decomposition of gaseous compounds into simple gases.” Page 157, “Whatever the substances we expose to the action of the galvanic current, decomposition takes place proportional to the strength of the current.” Page 152, “Hydrogen is always evolved at the negative pole of the battery and oxygen at the positive pole. The gases can then be collected in different tubes, the hydrogen tube receiving twice as much gas as the oxygen tube; since water consists of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen, it follows that the galvanic current decomposes water into its constituents. As chemically pure water has so great a resistance as almost to force us to consider it a non-conductor, it is generally acidulated with sulphuric acid. The smallest amount of acid diminishes theresistance considerably. The silent discharge is far more effective in bringing about this transformation than the spark discharge.” Page 37, “Gases are bad conductors of electricity; if it had been otherwise, we should never have become acquainted with electricity, as it would have been conducted away by the air as fast as it was generated. The vacuum also does not conduct electricity, butmoist airbecomes a partial conductor. Moist air also will spoil the insulation of non-conducting supports. All bodies are more or less hygroscopic, and the moisture condensed on their surfacesthus turns the best insulators into conductors. Change of temperature also influences conductivity.” Page 63, “When using induction machines, the moisture of the air often causes experiments to fail, especially before large audiences. The atmosphere becomes saturated with moisture, and it is often impossible to get the machine in working order.” Several desiccating devices are mentioned by the authors of this work, as used with such machines, to prevent such dissipation or conduction of electricity from the machine into space by the aqueous vapor of the atmosphere. In describing the aurora borealis (page 93), these authors say, “The rarefied air is nearer the earth at the poles than the equator, in consequence of the earth’s centrifugal motion, and, the earth being negatively electrified, negative electricity will flow from this point, directed against thepositively electrified upper layers of rarefied air.” Same work, pages 127, 128, “The resistance (in liquids) diminishesas the temperature increases, a result which is exactly opposite to what occurs with metals. Conductivity for carbon increases with the temperature, thus agreeing with the action of liquids.” Page 133, “To determine the resistance in liquids, the above methods cannot be employed, liquids being decomposed by the electrical current.” Referring to the voltaic arc and the spark of the induction apparatus (page 200), it is said, “Dry air under great pressure offers a high resistance, but aperfect vacuum is a perfect insulator, and between these extremes there are degrees of rarification which admit of a flow of electricity.” In general, it is said that electrical decomposition requires that the electrolyte be in liquid form, but this is not universally true, and throughout interplanetary space may not be true at all. In Ferguson’s work on Electricity, it is stated that, “The passage of electricity through compound gases in a state of great rarity, as in the so-called vacuum tubes, frequently separates them up into their constituents.” So, also, the opinion that electricity cannot be readily conducted through dry gases is refuted by the play of the auroral streamers. The distance from the surface of the earth of these electrical waves and the auroral arch is variously estimated at from seventy to two hundred and sixty-five miles, and in one instance “at a height of from four thousand to six thousand miles;” see article in Appleton’s Cyclopædia. Certainly there could be no sensible moisture at the temperatures there prevalent, and especially at night and during thefall and winter months when these displays are very frequent. Whether the currents be due to induction, as between neighboring bodies one of which is electrified, or from direct emission, as in brush discharges, there must obviously be some medium of contact and continuity for the free transference of electrical energy through space. Regarding therationaleof electrolysis (“Electricity in the Service of Man”), after discussing certain other theories, the authors say, “Clausius, too, assumes an electrified condition of the molecules of each electrode, but he neither attributes to the galvanic current the force of direction nor power of decomposing. He points out that both the molecules of fluids and also their atoms are in continual motion. The atoms in molecules of fluids are held together but by a moderate force, and the molecules themselves constantly undergo changes both of synthesis and analysis. The galvanic current merely effects a regulated motion of the atoms; the positive ions are attracted by the negative electrode, and the negative ions by the positive electrode, and by this means are separated out from the liquid.” Page 91, “The upper layers of air are more or less electrified, so as to have a potential differing from that of the earth, buthow their electrical condition has been produced is not at present known. Condensation of water-vapor is supposed to produce electricity. Close to the earth the air has little or no electricity; the farther from the earth the greater the amount of electricity in the air.” Referring to the sparking discharge, it issaid, page 75, “The density of the air, however, has to be taken into account; the sparking distance is lessened in denser air, and becomes greater when the atmospheric pressure is diminished. Not only the density, but also the chemical composition of the medium influences the sparking distance. Faraday found the distances considerably less in chlorine gas, buttwice as long in hydrogen gas as in air.” Page 74, “The sparking distance increases at a somewhat greater rate than the difference of potential of the discharging bodies …. When the sparking distance becomes very great … it is proportional to the difference of potential.” Page 91, “There is a difference of potential between the earth and points in the air above. In fine weather the potential is higher the higher we go, increasing usually at the rate oftwenty to forty volts for each foot.”
It will be seen that, continued upward at this rate, the increased electrical pressure for each mile of elevation would be between 100,000 and 200,000 volts, or for each one hundred miles more than 10,000,000 volts; and at an altitude of one thousand miles, if carried so far, the potential would be between one and two hundred million volts, an electrical pressure quite inconceivable to us. Such a potential in currents of enormous quantity continually flowing from the earth to the sun would certainly decompose any aqueous vapors condensed around these bodies. But the question at once arises, What reason is there to suppose that such currents could possibly flow between the earth and the sun, acrossthat vast intervening region of space, a distance of more than 90,000,000 miles? And would not the resistance to such currents in transit be so enormous that the entire potential, however great, would have been practically lost long before reaching the sun? To this there is a complete and irrefutable answer, not based upon any abstract theory, but upon established fact. It is an absolute certainty that electrical currents of enormous quantity and high potential are constantly passing between the earth and the sun, and that these currents have so free a passage—far more free than through any metallic circuits that we know of—that they pass over this enormous distance absolutely without appreciable resistance. We may note in this connection the well-known facts, now being largely utilized, though the art is still in its infancy, of telegraphing and transmitting all sorts of electrical currents over large distances without wires or any conductors, except those furnished by nature.
Of the currents between the earth and the sun, Professor Proctor, in his “Light Science for Leisure Hours,” says, “Remembering the influence which the sun has been found to exercise upon the magnetic needle, the question will naturally arise, Has the sun anything to do with magnetic storms? We have clear evidence that he has. On the 1st of September, 1859, Messrs. Carrington and Hodgson were observing the sun, one at Oxford and the other in London. Their scrutiny was directed to certain large spots which at that time marked the sun’s face. Suddenly a bright light was seen byeach observer to break out on the sun’s surface and to travel, slowly in appearance, but in reality at the rate of about seven thousand miles in a minute, across a part of the solar disk. Now, it was found afterwards that the self-registering magnetic instruments at Kew had madeat that very instanta strongly-marked jerk. It was learned that at that moment a magnetic storm prevailed in the West Indies, in South America, and in Australia. The signal men in the telegraph stations at Washington and Philadelphia received strong electric shocks; the pen of Bain’s telegraph was followed by a flame of fire; and in Norway the telegraphic machinery was set on fire. At night great auroras were seen in both hemispheres. It is impossible not to connect these startling magnetic indications with the remarkable appearance observed upon the sun’s disk. But there is other evidence. Magnetic storms prevail more commonly in some years than in others. In those years in which they occur most frequently it is found that the ordinary oscillations of the magnetic needle are more extensive than usual. Now, when these peculiarities had been noticed for many years, it was found that there was an alternate and systematic increase and diminution in intensity of magnetic action, and that the period of the variation was about eleven years. But at the same time a diligent observer had been recording the appearance of the sun’s face from day to day and from year to year. He had found that the solar spots are in some years more freely displayed than in others, and he had determined the period inwhich the spots had successively presented with maximum frequency to be about eleven years. On a comparison of the two sets of observations it was found (and has now been placed beyond a doubt by many years of continual observation) that magnetic perturbations are most energetic when the sun is most spotted, andvice versa. For so remarkable a phenomenon as this none but a cosmical cause can suffice. We can neither say that the spots cause the magnetic storms nor that the magnetic storms cause the spots. We must seek for a cause producing at once both sets of phenomena.” It will be observed that the phenomena seen in the sun were markedat the same instantby violent electric perturbations on earth. Hence something must have passed with the velocity of light, which we know to be at the rate of 188,000 miles per second, or in about eight minutes from the sun to the earth. But it is stated in “Electricity in the Service of Man,” page 82, that, “According to the theoretical calculations of Kirchhoff, as well as of Ayrton and Perry, the velocity of electricity in a wirewithout resistance would be equal to the velocity of light.” Hence we perceive that the apparent difficulty has vanished in the light of observed fact, and that currents of electricity do pass and are constantly passing between the earth and the sun without the slightest loss of speed,—that is to say, without resistance. We shall find in the sequel that the above phenomena were caused most probably by a partial interruption of a constant direct current from the earth to the sun, instead of by an opposite returncurrent from the sun to the earth. In further illustration of the above facts we quote the following, page 172, “Electricity in the Service of Man:” “Many attempts have been made to find a connection between the spots and prominences in the sun and the electrical phenomena on the earth. Professor Forster says that by numerous magnetic observations of the last thirty or forty years it has been proved that the formation of black spots on the surface of the sun, and the generation of pillars and clouds of glowing gases in the immediate neighborhood of the sun, stand in close connection with certain deviations in direction and intensity of the earth’s magnetic forces.” Professor Proctor, in his “Light Science for Leisure Hours,” says, “From all this it appears, incontestably, that there is an intimate connection between the causes of auroras and those of terrestrial magnetism …. The magnetic needle not only swayed responsively to auroras observable in the immediate neighborhood, but to auroras in progress hundreds and thousands of miles away. Nay, as inquiry progressed, it was discovered that the needles in our northern observatories are swayed by influences associated even with the occurrence of auroras around the southern polar regions …. Could we only associate auroras with terrestrial magnetism, we should still have done much to enhance the interest which the beautiful phenomenon is calculated to excite. But when once this association has been established, others of even greater interest are brought into recognition; for terrestrial magnetism has beenclearly shown to be influenced directly by the action of the sun …. We already begin to see, then, that auroras are associated in some mysterious way with the action of the solar rays. The phenomenon which had been looked on for so many ages as a mere spectacle, caused perhaps by some process in the upper regions of the air of a simple local character, has been brought into the range of planetary phenomena. As surely as the brilliant planets which deck the nocturnal skies are illuminated by the same orb which gives us our days and seasons, so are they subject to the same mysterious influence which causes the northern banners to wave respondently over the starlit depths of heaven. Nay, it is even probable that every flicker and coruscation of our auroral displays correspond with similar manifestations upon every planet which travels round the sun.” In Professor Ball’s late work, “In the High Heavens,” the author says, “Dr. Schuster suggests that there may be an electric connection between the sun and the planets. In fact, with some limitations, we might even assert that theremustbe such a connection. It is well known that great outbreaks on the sun have been immediately followed, I might almost say accompanied, by remarkable magnetic disturbances on the earth. The instances that are recorded of this connection are altogether too remarkable to be set aside as mere coincidences. Dr. Huggins has not referred in this connection to Hertz’s astonishing discoveries; but it seems quite possible that research along this line may throw light on the subject,at present so obscure,of the electric relation between the sun and the earth.” Of this common electrical relationship between our sun and the different planets, and of these with each other, Professor Proctor says, in his article, “Terrestrial Magnetism,” “Interesting as are the bonds of union which Copernicus and Kepler and Newton have traced in the relations of our system,it would seem as though we were approaching the traces of a yet more wonderful law of association. We see the earth’s magnetism responding to the solar influences, not merely in those rhythmic motions which belong to the periodic variations, but in sudden thrills affecting the whole framework of our globe. The magnetic storms which are called into action by such solar disturbances as the one of September, 1859, are, we may feel sure, not peculiar to our own earth. The other planets feel the same influence,—not, perhaps, in exactly the same way, but according to the constitution and physical habitudes which respectively belong to them. So that one can scarce conceive a subject of study at once more promising and more interesting.” Of these prophetic shadows which science often seems to cast before, Professor Nichol, in his “Architecture of the Heavens” (referring to Sir William Herschel), says, “Without difficulty or pretence he there casts aside an idea which had not been questioned before, unless in a few of those obscure, indefinite speculationswhich, strangely enough, often prelude important discoveries.” These facts are thus incontestably established: that electric currents of enormous energy and vast quantityare constantly passing without appreciable resistance and with the speed of light between the earth and the sun; that such currents cannot be conducted through vacua, or through dry gases, or through a dense medium; and that, whatever other matter may exist in the intervening space, such space is pervaded throughout by an attenuated vapor of such constitution and density that it will transmit such electrical currents with the highest conceivable efficiency. We know that such passage of these currents cannot depend upon the ether of space which is acted upon by the sun to produce the ethereal undulatory vibrations of light and heat, for, after we have produced the most perfect vacuum possible, we find that the rays of light continue to pass through it as freely as they pass through space, while currents of electricity cannot be made to pass at all. Hence we know to a certainty that the medium which transmits these enormous currents of electricity must be a vapor capable of conducting electricity, that it must hence be decomposable by the electric current, and that when decomposed one of its elements must consist of hydrogen gas and the other of oxygen; in other words, that this conducting medium must consist of attenuatedaqueousvapor, commingled doubtless with other vapors which themselves, like the acid of the acidulated water used in electrolysis, aid in the conduction of these enormous currents. We also know that such vapors in space will be necessarily attracted, by gravitation, around the solar and planetary bodies immersed therein, and must formcondensed vaporous atmospheres or cloud masses, and if these are decomposed by the passage of such currents of electricity, that hydrogen gas will be liberated at the solar galvanic pole and oxygen at the terrestrial or other planetary pole, precisely as we find to be the case in nature. Will such gaseous envelopes, then, have the same temperature for each gas when thus liberated, or will the hydrogen envelope of the sun be heated to incandescence, due to the passage of the electrical current?
Electrical polarities of sun and planets. A, body of the planet; B, planetary electrosphere; C, body of the sun; D, solar electrosphere.
Electrical polarities of sun and planets. A, body of the planet; B, planetary electrosphere; C, body of the sun; D, solar electrosphere.
The temperature of interplanetary space is probably very low. Of this Professor Ball says, “What this may be is a matter of some uncertainty, but from all the evidence available it seems plain that we may put it at not less than three hundred degrees below zero;” and the same author adds, “The temperature is taken to be sixty-four degrees below zero, being presumably that at the confines of the atmosphere.” Whatever the temperature of space, or its variations, may be, the passage of the planetaryelectricity through the condensed hydrogen envelope of the sun will produce great changes in the heat of that body and of the solar core within. While with a small electrolytic apparatus we find no special differences of temperature in the gases, with large quantities of electricity, driven at a high potential, we find that a new and startling result ensues. Something of this sort is seen in the operation of electric arc-light lamps, now in common use, in which two slightly separated carbon points are traversed by a current of considerable potential. The current is driven across the intervening space between the points, carrying with it an atmosphere of disintegrated carbon, through which the electricity is carried at its highest speed, and a most brilliant light is produced. In “Electricity in the Service of Man,” page 151, it is said, “We may conclude from this that the current does not cease when the arc of light is formed. The resistance of the arc seems to be only very slight; in fact, the current must be conducted by it.” Of the structure and constitution of the luminous electrosphere, or arc, produced in these lamps, “Professor J. A. Fleming,” says theScientific American, “has shown that the well-known color of the light of the electric arc from carbon points is due to the incandescence of the carbon filling the space between the positive and the negative rods. The true arc is here, and exists in a space filled with thevapor of carbon, which has a brilliant violet color. Examined by the spectroscope, the central axis of the carbon arc gives a spectrum marked bytwo bright violet bands. Outside this is an aureole of carbon vapor of yellow or golden color. The electrical strain of the arc occurs chieflyat the surface of the craterwhich forms at the end of the positive rod, where, in fact, the principal work of generating light is done; foreighty per cent. of the total light of the arc comes from the incandescent carbon at this place. Thus, in a sense, the arc light is mainly an incandescent light, the effect being produced by the layer of carbon which is being constantly evaporated at an extremely elevated temperature. Hence the light of the carbon arc is not, and can never be, white, as it is sometimes described as being, but must always be tinted violet by the carbon vapor normally present between the rods.”
The significance of the above-quoted extract will be readily perceived when we come to consider the action of the direct planetary electrical currents upon the solar envelope, the effects in both cases being substantially identical. The quantity and intensity of the electric current, as it passes through the incandescent arc to the negative pole, and thence back to the dynamo, are diminished exactly in proportion to the energy expended in the generation of the light and heat of the arc. It is precisely the same as in the operation of a turbine water-wheel; if working at its highest efficiency, the discharged water is almost deprived of force: its gravity has been converted into work. In the electric light this conversion is only partial, owing to atmospheric and other conditions; but in thecase of the solar envelope and its core, it is nearly, if not altogether, perfect, so that the currents of electricity are almost entirely converted into light and heat, or expended in the electrolytic decomposition of the surrounding aqueous vapors, and do not reappear as electricity, but as converted solar energy. Brilliant, however, as the light rays are in a powerful arc lamp,—perhaps the nearest to solar light we can produce,—the obscure heat rays are far more numerous and powerful. On page 476 of the work just cited a table is given, showing the proportion of visible and invisible rays emitted by different illuminants, and with the electric lamp, even, ninety per cent. of all the rays emitted by the voltaic arc are heat rays, which are obscure and invisible. But the startling effects of electricity of large quantity and high potential, in the decomposition of water, are far more strikingly exhibited by an apparatus shown in 1893 at the Chicago Exhibition by a firm from Brussels, and which is described in theElectrical Reviewas follows: “An ordinary wooden pail is three-quarters filled with water slightly acidulated; a lead plate about nine inches broad by sixteen inches long dips to the bottom of the pail and is connected to an incandescent dynamo machine capable of giving over one hundred and fifty ampères. The iron rod, or article to be heated, is connected to the pole of the dynamo and simply dipped into the water; it immediately becomes heated and rapidly rises to a melting temperature; only that portion of the metal completely immersed becomes heated,and the heating is so rapid that neither the water nor that portion of the metal out of the water becomes very warm. Wrought iron and steel actually melt if long enough held under water. A carbon rod subjected to this process becomes amorphous carbon, proving that a temperature of at least four thousand degrees Centigrade has been reached, and it is stated that with two hundred and twenty volts’ pressure a temperature of eight thousand degrees Centigrade has been reached. There are various theories to account for this phenomenon, but from close observation it appears to be a case of arc heating. The moment the metal is plunged into the waterit is enveloped in hydrogen gasdecomposed from the water. This envelope of gas parts the water and metal, forming an arc, which raises the surrounding gaseous envelope to an enormous temperature; the metal surrounded by this arc is almost immediately raised to the same temperature.A flame of burning hydrogenappears around the metal on the surface of the water. The principle of the method is the same as that on which the burning of an arc light between two carbon points under water depends. An arc lamp will burn quite steadily under water if the connections are made water-proof; the arc itself requires no protection.”
It will be seen that the process above described is precisely analogous to that involved in the problem of the sun’s energy. The planets correspond with the leaden plates, upon which oxygen is disengaged from the water, while at thesame moment the liberated hydrogen necessarily appears at the opposite pole. The generation of hydrogen gas forms an envelope or atmosphere of hydrogen around the sun which forces back the aqueous vapor. The current, in passing through this gaseous envelope to the metal core within, intensely heats the hydrogen, which rapidly communicates its rising heat to the central core. If this core is composed of metals, and the temperature be raised sufficiently high, which only depends upon the quantity and working pressure of the electricity employed, the metal core will be volatilized in whole or in part, and, if of mixed metals, we will find the presence of these elements revealed in the spectroscopic lines corresponding thereto, and the flames and flashes of hydrogen at the surfaces beyond the envelope, at the surface of contact with the matter of space, will be also seen. In fact, such an experiment, properly prepared, could be made to show roughly most of the phenomena of solar light and heat as they actually appear, such as sun-spots, prominences, jets, plumes, faculæ, the photosphere, chromosphere, absorption bands, vortical disturbances, metallic vapors, and the complete solar spectrum, with the different Fraunhofer lines. In the case of the sun, these currents must be measured by millions of ampères, and possibly by hundreds of millions of volts, instead of by mere hundreds, while the hydrogen envelope extends outward from the sun’s surface hundreds of thousands of miles until, perhaps, finally merged into the corona. As the currentspass from the planets and planetoids (for not only the larger planets, but all the planetary bodies of our system must contribute, if any of them contribute) to the sun, or rather to the sphere of its electrical action, without resistance, so long as these planets generate constant currents of the same, or nearly the same, potential, so long will the sun maintain his constant light and heat; if these are increased or diminished, the sun’s light and heat will be temporarily, but only temporarily, increased or diminished; and this process must continue, without further loss or change, indefinitely into the future. Whatever the sun may gain by increment of meteoric masses may pass for what it is worth, but the gradual contraction of his volume cannot proceed while his present temperature is maintained by the passage of such currents,—that is to say, his light and heat will remain constant, and also his mass and volume, so long as the electric currents which pass from the planets to the sun and the constitution of space which surrounds the sun and planets themselves remain constant.
Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity.Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity.
Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity.
It now remains to consider how such enormous currents of electricity can be generated and maintained. We know, of course, that chemical changes cannot operate to produce them. They must be derived from something contained in or diffused through interplanetary space, and the planets themselves must be the means by which such currents of electricity are brought into effective operation. On our own earth we have many kindsof mechanically-constructed electrical apparatus whichgenerateelectricity, to use a popular expression, or which, more properly, separate the opposite potentials from an unstable electrical tension or equilibrium of the matter of space. These machines practically take positive electricity from the mutually-balanced electric potentials of which the earth and its surrounding gaseous envelope are the vast common storehouse, in such manner that the positive electricity thus drawn out from and again passing into the common storehouse shall, during such transit, be compelled to pass through channels which will cause it to do work, at the expense of its potential or pressure, during its passage, or in which electricity is raised in its electro-motive force from a lower to a higher potential or pressure, just as the pressure of water is increased when delivered from a greater or a still greater height, or steam, when confined in space under higher and still higher temperatures. But none of these machines actuallygenerateelectricityab initio; they merely put into effective operation the pre-existing force. The mass of the earth is of irregularly negative polarity, the air above is positive, and as weascend, the potential, or voltage, or pressure increases at a nearly uniform rate of from twenty to forty volts for each foot. The earth is thus surrounded by an electrosphere as well as an atmosphere, and the two are not coincident, for while the pressure of the atmosphere diminishes as we ascend, that of the electrosphere increases. The moon, too, and each planet must have its electrosphere, and around the sun’s core we can see the solar electrosphere in its visible glory. Thus, all our planets rotate upon their axes and revolve around the sun, each surrounded by an enormous electrosphere, just as an electrical induction machine is surrounded, when in operation, with an electrosphere of its own, and which, by breaking connection with the conductor which carries away its current, becomes, when shown in a darkened room, clearly visible. In “Electricity in the Service of Man” it is said, page 63, “The inductive action of the machine is quite as rapid and as powerful when both collectors are removed and nothing is left but the two rotating disks and their respective contact or neutralizing brushes. The whole apparatus then bristles with electricity, and if viewed in the dark presents a most beautiful appearance, being literally bathed with luminous brush discharges.” This is a true aurora.
The Aurora Borealis. (From “Electricity in the Service of Man.”)The Aurora Borealis. (From “Electricity in the Service of Man.”)
The Aurora Borealis. (From “Electricity in the Service of Man.”)
Diffused brush discharge of electrical machine, when operating with its current cut off or interrupted between machine and principal condenser.Diffused brush discharge of electrical machine, when operating with its current cut off or interrupted between machine and principal condenser.
Diffused brush discharge of electrical machine, when operating with its current cut off or interrupted between machine and principal condenser.
Let us now examine some of these more recent electric machines,—the later induction, not the older frictional machines, for it is obvious that the rotation of the planets, if they operate as electric generators, or separators, must act by inductionand not by friction. The frictional machines are of the old type and are well known from the books; in these a glass disk or cylinder is rubbed upon in its rotation by an amalgamated (so called) friction pad fixed securely to the bed of the machine. But more recently these have been replaced by far more powerful and simple machines which operate entirely by induction, like approaching thunderclouds, for instance, and in which one or more glass disks are merely rotated rapidly and freely in the air, these disks having a number of light metallic sectors, such as bits of tin-foil, pasted on their outer sides at equal radial intervals, and with metallic collecting brushes which, however, barely graze the surfaces of the rotating disk. There is no pressure and no friction, except that of the disks as they freely revolve in the atmosphere.
In the above-quoted work, page 61, is a description of Wimshurst’s influence machine, one of the most recent and most powerful, which we condense as follows: This machine was produced about 1883. It consists of two circular disks of thin glass fourteen and one-half inches in diameter in the sample described, attached at their centers to loose bosses, so as to be rotated by cords and pulleys operated by a handle, in opposite directions. The disks rotate parallel with each other and are not more than one-eighth of an inch apart, and have their surfaces well varnished; and attached by cement to their outer surfaces are twelve or more radial, sector-shaped plates of thin brass- or tin-foil, disposed around the disks at equal distances apart. Thesesectors take the place of the “inductors” of Holtz’s instrument, and appear to act also as carriers, though the exact nature of their action is somewhat mysterious. It appears, however, probable that those acting for the time as carriers on the one disk act at the same time as inductors on the other. The two sectors on the same diameter of each disk, at opposite sides of the center, are twice in each revolution momentarily placed in metallic connection with one another by means of a pair of fine wire brushes attached to the ends of a bent metal rod loosely pivoted at the center of each disk, the metal sectorsjust grazingthe tips of the wire brushes as they pass. There is one of these bent rods on the outside of each disk, and their position as pivoted on their center can be varied at will, both with reference to the one on the opposite side and to the position of the fixed collecting combs. The efficiency of the machine varies with their position, and the maximum appears to be generally when the brushes touch the disks on diameters crossing the position of the collecting combs at about forty-five degrees, and with the bent rods on opposite sides at right angles to each other. The collecting combs are simple forks with collecting points turned inward, which forks embrace the opposite sides of the disks outside, which freely rotate between them, and they are supported on insulated posts. These supports may be small Leyden jars or condensers, with discharging knobs, or may be connected with similar condensers at a distance, or arranged in batteries or otherwise. The presenceof the collecting combs is not necessary to the operation of the machine, their sole function being to carry away the positive electricity as generated. The machine is self-exciting, and it is believed that theinitial actionmust be due to friction in the layer of air contained between the plates, which, as above stated, are only about one-eighth of an inch apart. It is nearly independent of atmospheric conditions, and not liable to reverse its polarity, as are the Voss machines. The Voss machine uses a larger glass disk which does not rotate, but is fixed, and which has a central opening three inches wide, with a different arrangement of tin-foil disks or sectors, and a smaller glass disk rotates parallel with it. The Holtz machine is somewhat similar, using a single rotating, well-varnished glass disk revolving opposite a well-varnished larger disk, the latter provided with three sector-shaped openings or windows, with varnished paper inductors or flaps passing through these windows so as to touch the revolving disk. There are also two series of fine metal points held by brass bars provided with insulated handles and discharging knobs.
It is only necessary to give a general idea of the construction and operation of such machines, as their specific construction can be readily learned from the books. Of the mode of operation, however, it is said, “What takes place when the machine is in action is of a very complicated nature, and can hardly be said to be perfectly understood.” With a Wimshurst machine having disks of a diameter of fourteen and one-half inches “there is producedunder ordinary atmospheric conditions a powerful spark discharge between the knobs when they are separated by a distance of four and one-half inches, a pint size Leyden jar being in connection with each knob (one on each opposite diameter of the two disks), and these four-and-one-half-inch discharges take place in regular succession at every two and a half turns of the handle. It is usual to construct the machine with small Leyden jars or condensers attached to conductors, by which the spark is materially increased. A machine has been constructed with plates seven feet in diameter, which, it was believed, would give sparks thirty inches long; but no Leyden jars have been found to withstand its discharge, all being pierced by the enormous tension.” Three of Toepler’s induction machines (see page 59, “Electricity in the Service of Man”), connected together, gave a current which maintained a platinum wire one-fifth of a millimeter thick continually at a red heat, and was also capable of decomposing water.