chapter22.txt

CHAPTER XXII







THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EDISON STORAGE



BATTERY







IT is more than a hundred years since the elementary



principle of the storage battery or "accumulator"



was detected by a Frenchman named Gautherot; it



is just fifty years since another Frenchman, named



Plante, discovered that on taking two thin plates of



sheet lead, immersing them in dilute sulphuric acid,



and passing an electric current through the cell, the



combination exhibited the ability to give back part



of the original charging current, owing to the chemical



changes and reactions set up. Plante coiled up his



sheets into a very handy cell like a little roll of carpet



or pastry; but the trouble was that the battery took a



long time to "form." One sheet becoming coated



with lead peroxide and the other with finely divided



or spongy metallic lead, they would receive current,



and then, even after a long period of inaction, furnish



or return an electromotive force of from 1.85



to 2.2 volts. This ability to store up electrical energy



produced by dynamos in hours otherwise idle, whether



driven by steam, wind, or water, was a distinct advance



in the art; but the sensational step was taken about



1880, when Faure in France and Brush in America



broke away from the slow and weary process of "form-



ing" the plates, and hit on clever methods of furnishing



them "ready made," so to speak, by dabbing red



lead onto lead-grid plates, just as butter is spread on a



slice of home-made bread. This brought the storage



battery at once into use as a practical, manufactured



piece of apparatus; and the world was captivated



with the idea. The great English scientist, Sir



William Thomson, went wild with enthusiasm when



a Faure "box of electricity" was brought over from



Paris to him in 1881 containing a million foot-pounds



of stored energy. His biographer, Dr. Sylvanus P.



Thompson, describes him as lying ill in bed with a



wounded leg, and watching results with an incandescent



lamp fastened to his bed curtain by a safety-pin,



and lit up by current from the little Faure cell. Said



Sir William: "It is going to be a most valuable,



practical affair--as valuable as water-cisterns to



people whether they had or had not systems of water-



pipes and water-supply." Indeed, in one outburst



of panegyric the shrewd physicist remarked that he



saw in it "a realization of the most ardently and



increasingly felt scientific aspiration of his life--an



aspiration which he hardly dared to expect or to see



realized." A little later, however, Sir William,



always cautious and canny, began to discover the



inherent defects of the primitive battery, as to



disintegration, inefficiency, costliness, etc., and though



offered tempting inducements, declined to lend his



name to its financial introduction. Nevertheless, he



accepted the principle as valuable, and put the battery



to actual use.







For many years after this episode, the modern lead-



lead type of battery thus brought forward with so



great a flourish of trumpets had a hard time of it.



Edison's attitude toward it, even as a useful



supplement to his lighting system, was always one of



scepticism, and he remarked contemptuously that the



best storage battery he knew was a ton of coal. The



financial fortunes of the battery, on both sides of the



Atlantic, were as varied and as disastrous as its



industrial; but it did at last emerge, and "made good."



By 1905, the production of lead-lead storage batteries



in the United States alone had reached a value for



the year of nearly $3,000,000, and it has increased



greatly since that time. The storage battery is now



regarded as an important and indispensable adjunct



in nearly all modern electric-lighting and electric-



railway systems of any magnitude; and in 1909, in



spite of its weight, it had found adoption in over ten



thousand automobiles of the truck, delivery wagon,



pleasure carriage, and runabout types in America.







Edison watched closely all this earlier development



for about fifteen years, not changing his mind as to



what he regarded as the incurable defects of the lead-



lead type, but coming gradually to the conclusion



that if a storage battery of some other and better



type could be brought forward, it would fulfil all the



early hopes, however extravagant, of such men as



Kelvin (Sir William Thomson), and would become as



necessary and as universal as the incandescent lamp



or the electric motor. The beginning of the present



century found him at his point of new departure.







Generally speaking, non-technical and uninitiated



persons have a tendency to regard an invention as



being more or less the ultimate result of some happy



inspiration. And, indeed, there is no doubt that such



may be the fact in some instances; but in most cases



the inventor has intentionally set out to accomplish



a definite and desired result--mostly through the



application of the known laws of the art in which he



happens to be working. It is rarely, however, that



a man will start out deliberately, as Edison did, to



evolve a radically new type of such an intricate device



as the storage battery, with only a meagre clew and



a vague starting-point.







In view of the successful outcome of the problem



which, in 1900, he undertook to solve, it will be



interesting to review his mental attitude at that period.



It has already been noted at the end of a previous



chapter that on closing the magnetic iron-ore



concentrating plant at Edison, New Jersey, he resolved



to work on a new type of storage battery. It was



about this time that, in the course of a conversation



with Mr. R. H. Beach, then of the street-railway



department of the General Electric Company, he said:



"Beach, I don't think Nature would be so unkind as



to withhold the secret of a GOOD storage battery if a



real earnest hunt for it is made. I'm going to hunt."







Frequently Edison has been asked what he considers



the secret of achievement. To this query he



has invariably replied: "Hard work, based on hard



thinking." The laboratory records bear the fullest



witness that he has consistently followed out this



prescription to the utmost. The perfection of all his



great inventions has been signalized by patient,



persistent, and incessant effort which, recognizing noth-



ing short of success, has resulted in the ultimate



accomplishment of his ideas. Optimistic and hopeful



to a high degree, Edison has the happy faculty of



beginning the day as open-minded as a child--yesterday's



disappointments and failures discarded and



discounted by the alluring possibilities of to-morrow.







Of all his inventions, it is doubtful whether any one



of them has called forth more original thought, work,



perseverance, ingenuity, and monumental patience



than the one we are now dealing with. One of his



associates who has been through the many years of



the storage-battery drudgery with him said: "If



Edison's experiments, investigations, and work on



this storage battery were all that he had ever done,



I should say that he was not only a notable inventor,



but also a great man. It is almost impossible to



appreciate the enormous difficulties that have been



overcome."







From a beginning which was made practically in



the dark, it was not until he had completed more



than ten thousand experiments that he obtained any



positive preliminary results whatever. Through all



this vast amount of research there had been no previous



signs of the electrical action he was looking for.



These experiments had extended over many months



of constant work by day and night, but there was



no breakdown of Edison's faith in ultimate success--



no diminution of his sanguine and confident expectations.



The failure of an experiment simply meant



to him that he had found something else that would



not work, thus bringing the possible goal a little nearer



by a process of painstaking elimination.







Now, however, after these many months of arduous



toil, in which he had examined and tested practically



all the known elements in numerous chemical



combinations, the electric action he sought for had



been obtained, thus affording him the first inkling of



the secret that he had industriously tried to wrest



from Nature. It should be borne in mind that from



the very outset Edison had disdained any intention of



following in the only tracks then known by employing



lead and sulphuric acid as the components of a



successful storage battery. Impressed with what he



considered the serious inherent defects of batteries



made of these materials, and the tremendously complex



nature of the chemical reactions taking place in



all types of such cells, he determined boldly at the



start that he would devise a battery without lead,



and one in which an alkaline solution could be used--



a form which would, he firmly believed, be inherently



less subject to decay and dissolution than the standard



type, which after many setbacks had finally won



its way to an annual production of many thousands



of cells, worth millions of dollars.







Two or three thousand of the first experiments followed



the line of his well-known primary battery in



the attempted employment o...