The Story of Electricity
by John Munro
- Pages
- about 184
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3.4 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
AUTHOR OF ELECTRICITY AND ITS USES, PIONEERS OF ELECTRICITY,
HEROES OF THE TELEGRAPH, ETC., AND JOINT AUTHOR OF MUNRO AND
JAMIESON'S POCKET-BOOK OF ELECTRICAL RULES AND TABLES
A work on electricity needs little recommendation to stimulate the
interest of the general reader. Electricity in its manifold
applications is so large a factor in the comfort and convenience
of our daily life, so essential to the industrial organization
which embraces every dweller in a civilized land, so important in
the development and extension of civilization itself, that a
knowledge of its principles and the means through which they are
directed to the service of mankind should be a part of the mental
equipment of everyone who pretends to education in its truest
sense. Let anyone stop to consider how he individually would be
affected if all electrical service were suddenly to cease, and he
cannot fail to appreciate the claims of electricity to attentive
study.
The purpose of this little book is to present the essential facts
of electrical science in a popular and interesting way, as befits
the scheme of the series to which it belongs. Electrical phenomena
have been observed since the first man viewed one of the most
spectacular and magnificent of them all in the thunderstorm, but
the services of electricity which we enjoy are the product solely
of scientific achievement in the nineteenth century. It is to
these services that the main part of the following discussion is
devoted. The introductory chapters deal with various sources of
electrical energy, in friction, chemical action, heat and
magnetism. The rest of the book describes the applications of
electricity in electroplating, communication by telegraph,
telephone, and wireless telegraphy, the production of light and
heat, the transmission of power, transportation over rails and in
vehicles, and the multitude of other uses.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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