The Library of Work and Play: Electricity and Its Everyday UsesWoodhull, John F. (John Francis)
Science
The Library of Work and Play: Electricity and Its Everyday Uses
Woodhull, John F. (John Francis)
Electricity -- Juvenile literature
The boys unscrewed the end of a telephone receiver (Fig. 157) and found
inside a permanent magnet made of several steel bars bolted together
(Fig. 158). This was shown to be a magnet by presenting a small pocket
compass to either end. The left-hand end of this magnet proved to be
its north pole by repelling the blue end of the compass needle.
[Illustration: Fig. 157]
[Illustration: Fig. 158]
[Illustration: Fig. 159]
On the left-hand end of the magnet was a small spool of No. 36 copper
wire, silk covered. It offered 75 ohms of resistance, and since it
takes 2-1/2 feet of this wire to furnish 1 ohm of resistance the spool
contains 187-1/2 feet. A thin disc of soft iron .01 inch in thickness
is held by the hard rubber case very near to but not quite touching
this end of the magnet. We drew this disc to one side, as shown in
Fig. 159, and connected the receiver by wires to a magneto. We turned
the crank of the magneto slowly and the iron disk danced up and
down, keeping time with the revolutions of the armature. The magneto
furnished an alternating current, which, when it flowed around the
coil in one direction, strengthened the pole of the magnet, and in the
reverse direction weakened the pole. When the crank was turned so as
to produce twenty to thirty revolutions of the armature per second the
dancing of the disc sounded like the low hum produced by the wing of
a humming bird. When a large, wide-mouthed bottle was brought near to
this the sound was greatly reinforced, as the sound of a bee becomes
louder when he appears at your open window. We next replaced the iron
disc and put on the cap again. We then connected the receiver at _S_
(Fig. 160) and connected two dry cells at _p_. When the primary circuit
was closed the disc vibrated in time with the hammer of the bell making
the same tone. We substituted for the bell a series of buzzers. The
smallest had an armature about one inch long, while that of the largest
was about two inches long. The shorter the armature the faster it
vibrated, and the higher was the pitch of its tone. We arranged these
as shown in Fig. 161. _A_, _C_, _D_, _E_ and _F_ are the buzzers. _B_
is a battery of two cells and _G_, _H_, _I_, _J_ and _K_ are springs of
sheet brass which act as push buttons. By operating upon these springs
with one's fingers, as upon the keys of an organ, it was possible to
represent the tones of a reed organ after a fashion. The armatures are
reeds and they are made to vibrate by electro-magnets. We called it
an electric organ. The telephone receiver was connected at _T_, and
the wires which led to it were lengthened so that the receiver might
be a long distance away. The disc in the receiver kept time with the
armature of each buzzer when it sounded and faithfully reproduced its
sound. But the strangest thing was that when any two buzzers sounded
together, or, indeed, if all five buzzers sounded together, the
receiver responded to them all at the same time, so that a person in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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